Genie Hargrove, Douglas Keith, and Joe Windish

00:03 I'm Joe Windish and 56. It's February 18th, 2011. And we're in Macon Georgia. My life partner is Doug Heath who is with me and we're here to have a conversation with Jeanne Hargrove to the pastor who performed our commitment ceremony.

00:25 I'm Doug Keith. I'm 43. And my life partner is Joe Windish and we are here to talk with Genie Hargrove who was the efficient and our commitment ceremony in 2009 and today is February 18th, 2011. And where in Macon, Georgia?

00:45 I'm Jeannie Hargrove. I'm 55. It's February 18th 2011. Where the Macon Georgia and I'm here with my dear friends Doug and Joe to talk about my journey and then our journey together.

01:01 I really appreciate that thought that we could work this out Genie. So let's go and get started. I guess I'm ready.

01:12 You are one of several adopted children, and I know that your parents and you have a very special relationship and I wonder if there's a story from your childhood that you could think about that really embodies the love that you learned from them from your parents. I think they're a couple of stories that are fairly short on one thing. I remember is when my sister who was the third adopted child the day that we adopted her my brother Tom and I raced out of the house to see who could touch her first and I have this wonderful picture of my mother holding my sister and I have reached up and holding her leg and I love that the memory in that picture of us racing out. Just wanting to touch her and she becomes part of our family as a teenager my mother and dad.

02:12 We're always I called in Strays. But Mother and Daddy were always reaching out to other people people in need lonely people and bringing them home and I always wondered why do we always have to have all these people is a part of our family when they became and as I got a little older I realized it was my mother and Daddy's great capacity for love that let them adopt for children, but actually compel them to go into the world and be parents too many people who did not have parents and I think that when I had that when I finally had that realization then I learn to to love what my parents had done by adopting four of us and to embrace the greater family that my parents had given me.

03:01 What?

03:02 In your almost want to say in your current life? What what? What did you take from that?

03:09 Well, I've kind of become that way is that that people talk about blood you know, he's yeah, they're related by blood and that has never meant anything to me and one of the things that I realize is that the people in my life are family. I called I call people that love me and people that reach out to me and I reach out to them their family. I guess the the greatest indicator to made of what it means to adopt a broad spectrum of people until love people was at my mother's funeral.

03:49 And the church was just packed with people that my mother had either directly touched or had touched her one of her children.

03:59 And so, you know, my parents have such a great capacity to love people that are especially in need of love. And so I carry that with me and I try to embrace that in my own life.

04:20 My mom and dad are Billy and Harriet Hargrove.

04:25 And I lost my mother last April.

04:31 I don't know what I've ever met such a big hearted people really and so they they obviously shared that with you and your siblings.

04:39 Pandan real palpable way cuz every time I've ever the first time I ever met you I felt like I was your sister. I mean, you're my sister. I'll be your sister.

04:54 Maybe just came a little bit later, but whenever you

04:58 Came out to your parents. Can you talk a little bit about how they came to terms with that what the process was? Like sure my younger brother Marlon came out to them first probably about 10 years before I did and soap for Mother and Daddy was a real journey there. Their first reaction was like many, you know, what did we do wrong? You know, how did we fail our children? And so mother daddy began that Journey when he came out and there was a time when my brother Marlon was testifying at the trial of a man who had molested him and I felt that at that time that took so that I could stand with my brother that it was time for me to come out and I think that at that time my mother and that through the trial Mother and Daddy realized about the bigotry in the hatred for people

05:58 For gay men and lesbian women I think Mother and Daddy realize that and that was a turning point for them when they became real Advocates because they believe people are people and so they were able to let go of that of their preconceived notions about how they should feel about their gay children. And so it's been a long journey.

06:24 Nothing that I know that my mother turn the corner the day that she could say the word lesbian there was there was a time when she told me that she didn't care for that word and you know, they went when she traveled a journey and and then I was thrilled when she was able to say that word in a positive way when she said I believe she's a lesbian is it she about one of my friends but it's so when she said that without squinting her face up, I knew that she had turned that corner and Daddy had kind of turned it a couple of years before but it was a long journey for them. But once they turn the corner then they became great Advocates and really wanted to get out there and I think one of their favorite groups of people to love or are the gay men and lesbians in my mother loved the game in she called them her boys and so for them people think they say

07:24 Your parents are so open-minded and I am the Mother and Daddy didn't get there overnight. But the thing that I was so thankful for is that they were willing to make the trip. So many parents are not your dad is spoken to me very movingly will every time I talk to him to Waterworks are on. I just can't I can't talk to your dad without crying because I counter love with him and I think I'm going to start crying right now. I'm not careful. But when he told us about his what he went through in the I guess in the sixties with the desegregation and racial unrest that was going on across the country and how how how his heart changed through those years and how he found himself on the opposite side of a divided from many of the people. We were at his church. I knew that he had

08:16 It is like that experience with a primed him to be open to other things that other people weren't ready to be open to I think you're right. And I guess that that opening of his heart that he had at that earlier age was helpful.

08:33 I know that was a difficult time.

08:38 Maybe you want to stay a step back in time a little bit and

08:44 You're a minister and a fine pastor and I want to talk to you. I want you to talk a little bit about about Seminary and how maybe how you experience your call to become a minister. And what happened after that? Okay, I call myself a crib Baptist. They got me and so I'm a crib Baptist and I've been a Baptist all my life and and we were raised at the the the whole purpose is to go out into the world go and tell the world and I grew up in a world where I never really saw a woman Pastor. They just they didn't exist where I was so I'm always thought I'd be a missionary to Africa. That was what we started and that's what I always thought. I would be I never thought it was an option for me to be the pastor of a church because I had never seen that

09:42 But I always felt called to serve God in a leadership way. And so when I finish college, I applied to Seminary. I was not out its Seminary the first time. I've been twice the first time I went to Seminary. I was not out and I felt like that that I will just put my sexuality on hold. I'm I really wasn't out to anybody but myself and route to yourself though. I was out to myself sort of it was a hard journey because I did not at that time if you can believe it in 1977. I didn't really have any real true gay friends. I have never met a couple that have been together and I'd run up in a really conservative Baptist Church. Did you grow up in Milledgeville? I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina

10:36 So I was at Seminary and I was struggling with my call really believing that God had a special plan for me and struggling with my sexuality and knowing that I had always known that that I was gay. I just didn't know what the word was. I knew that I was different from everybody else, but I didn't know I didn't understand it and that was a journey for me, but I just felt like that my call to the ministry with.

11:06 Always rise above that it was there about sexuality. But how about gender because you said there were no women. Well, it was really for me. It was the the the gender thing was the biggest issue at that time. I just figured that I could just you know, as ludicrous as this may sound that I just want to let you know to be celibate just be a single minister or missionary and you know do like our dear departed Saint Lottie Moon. Who is the closest thing to a Baptist Saint there is to be single so gender at that time. The first time I went to Seminary gender was really the biggest issue sure and I graduated from Seminary and went

11:54 Did this is an interesting story I think worth telling after I graduated from Seminary after I graduated in 1979 the December and in the next 6 months, I did an internship in the chaplaincy program at Central State Hospital and one of my supervisors who was one of the people who poop when I would counsel people that were at the state hospital then he would say now. Why did you say this? Why are you dealing with this as he tried to help me find out who I was going to be and he and I had a really really rocky relationship. He was a Catholic priest and he can't challenge me and saying, you know, you're not being an honest with me in these sessions that we're having and he was right I was because I wasn't mad at you now struggling with a gay issue, but I wasn't going down that road and what I felt from him was was that he was a gay priest and that he wasn't being honest.

12:54 Either and so he and I never never could come to terms while with with with the thing that we were both hiding that kept us from being able to communicate or to be free and I said it's like this like a boulder between both there wasn't so he recognized my Boulder and called me out on it, but he didn't see it. But he didn't see us on and he he died of AIDS years later, you know, I read about him. He was a real Advocate against the death penalty.

13:27 And he died of AIDS many years later and I wish that after I had come to terms in my own self that I had been able to reconnect with him. But that was a that was a turning point for me as I began to really realize it was something I had to to come to terms with I went from there to church in Columbia South Carolina and was very unhappy serving as a youth Minister on a church staff that I was pretty good at being a youth Minister but I worked under a pastor that was very autocratic and said, you know, it doesn't really matter what you think. This is what's going this is this is how it's going to be in you're going to do things my way and

14:13 So I left at church and what what I didn't know is that in at least in Baptist life. If you leave a church without another one to go to they don't want to talk to you just like a gap there in your purse. So in your work history, there's a big gap because I couldn't I couldn't even get an interview with a church. But what I think is the suspect in in God's infinite wisdom, but he knew I needed to go off that path for a long time.

14:44 Until I could make my way back.

14:47 And we could be here for days and days and days about that Journey. But what happened to me was as I went off the path of being a minister in a church. I began to find myself.

15:00 Slowly, but surely until one day I could look in the mirror and say

15:06 I'm a Child of God. I'm a lesbian and God wants me to be a pastor. I don't know how.

15:15 But one day it's going to happen.

15:19 And you know, I just always felt that call to be a pastor and a preacher. I love to praise. I love to get in the pulpit and preach. You know, you just a few times I can tell you love it and those of us who get to listen. Love it, too.

15:39 During that at that time that you were not a pastor and before you came back to kind of pursue that more actively you you moved around different places. You had very different different ways of living. It sounded like it a lot of different jobs. I did some Wild Oats I lived in in Waze not horrible things baby, but I was pursuing I was trying to find myself and sometimes and finding myself. I was trying to lose myself. So many people do I was actually thinking more about you became an accountant.

16:27 I mean serious sinful lifestyle right there, but go on at well.

16:33 You know, I did some things just to work things because the church work was just on an option at that time. I've had many people ask me that question. Why don't you just go to the Metropolitan Community Church so obvious and so easy if you want to be ordained and if you want to serve God go to the place where they welcome, you know men and women who are gays and lesbians and I felt always compelled to be in the Baptist faith not a southern baptist but to be in the Baptist so I became an accountant because I had to make a living and I was good at it. I mean that with that that is very good and I enjoy it because it lets me be with the people which is where I love to be and what else can I see FaceTime with I do and what I will tell you is this is that people that will talk to you about their money will talk to you about anything's I bet they will tell me once

17:33 Call telling a story that someone has told you that was just unrelated to you weren't expecting or was very strange in your work as an accountant. I will I am in fact just recently I had a woman in my office and was just really ready for her to go and then all of a sudden she was just making me crazy talk and she kept saying the same things over and over and over again, and I was going yes ma'am. Yes, ma'am, and then all of a sudden she burst into tears and said to me I'm the one who was supposed to die.

18:11 And her husband was not as not deceased yet, but he had gotten very very ill and so everything had gotten flip flops around for them. And so she sat in my office and wet and that just came out of left field and then of course, you know there I was talked about Waterworks. Yes, and so people it's a money is a very personal thing and I've had people talk to me about their marital issues. I had a man come in one time and told me that he had finally started finding the mail and his wife and run up $75,000 in credit card bills that have been hiding from him. And so they want from me they want help with that but there's something one, I believe one of the gifts that God has given me is the gift for True empathy.

19:01 That I have the ability to really feel.

19:05 What people are feeling when they're sitting in my office? And I think they sent that and that's why people tell me things that they would not necessarily.

19:15 Tell other people

19:20 I cherish that gift. It's it's really get a gift to me. I mean cuz you and I can sit together and really I mean

19:30 All I've always had to do star talk about Micah the prophet Micah and that book and start crying and it's like you look right into my heart. And I that's something that I I I just love about you that such a gift to the world. Did you want to say something I do I would like us to get to you or your ministry today how you got there by Ministry today? Well, like you said you went to Seminary at twice and and so does that lead into the way I got to be the pastor of of a Baptist church today, which is surprising and itself. My dad was the pastor of a little country Baptist Church for 35 years and because I love to preach but I wasn't a pastor and I wasn't or date whenever he would want to take a Sunday off. It was always my chance to preach.

20:29 And when he would be out of town, I filled in for him doing hospital visits. So I served as an associate pastor, even though I wasn't ordained I did everything.

20:41 That my daddy did I followed in his footsteps and it it really happened very naturally when Daddy said to the congregation, you know, I've got to start thinking about retiring and I want you to think about what you want to do about a minister and it was almost unanimous that they all said what we want Jenny to be our pastor. It was almost unanimous and daddy said well, she'll need to be ordained and so the church voted unanimously to call for my ordination and in the Baptist life what that means is you call a bunch of Bap tortie ordained people together.

21:19 I'm a council. It's a council with an ordination Council and they ask a bunch of questions to determine your call if they believe in your call.

21:30 And I'd like to talk a little bit about the ordination Council if that's okay. The first thing that happened with ordination Council was the day that the council was to meet the pastor of the church that we were going to meet in called my father and said you're not going to be able to meet here. We've heard some things about your daughter. And so we're not going to let you meet in our church. They were concerned about that. So we decided to have an ordination council at my parents house. So the Lord we all gathered at my parents house and my mother went back to her bedroom and did her thing because she wasn't a part of it.

22:12 And they asked me a lot of questions. Some of them were friends of mine. One of the ordination meant was a mentor of mine. Then there was a young man on the ordination Council that had just been ordained about six months earlier. So, he's a Hotshot about and well he squirmed through the whole time. He he asked a few questions. I asked about my faith about my call a variety of things like that and he squirmed the whole time and we got to the very end of it. He looked at me and he said I just have to ask this and he said

22:47 There have been people saying that you're gay and I wanted to ask you about that and there was a moment of panic but I had already made up my mind that I was going to any question that was asked. I was going to answer it answer it straightforward. So I had to just a second of panic but then I leaned across the table and I looked him in the eye and I said the reason that you've heard those rumors is because they're true. I didn't give him a chance to respond and I immediately began to talk about how I felt like that the church should abandon McKay brothers and sisters and that I was called.

23:28 To be a minister to two people that that had been abandoned and I said and I looked him in the eye and I said, you know, my brother has left the church because the church has turned its back on him. And I said I have many brothers and sisters that have done that.

23:48 And so that was that was a real turning point for me to know that I would never have to lie about that lad about lie about that ever again that I was always stand up for that truth, which is so important and who I am is a minister.

24:05 Interesting will you know if he did not vote against me? He just he declined to vote.

24:11 But he did not vote against me. And so

24:17 Six months later after it was several. It was after my ordination. He and I ended up doing a funeral together, which was very interesting but a good experience it was good. I think he is on that Journey. He wasn't ready to say it was okay, but he was not at a place where he was going to say why you can't do what God has called you to do because I told the council I looked it looked at the mall and I said, you can choose not to ordain me today, but you can never stop me from doing what God has called me to do because I have to do it.

24:59 Enter they did they do they vote in everybody voted or you don't know what the boat was you only know.

25:11 Wow.

25:13 Sure.

25:15 Finding out that you've been

25:19 Well, we had a that that after the after the vote you don't actually get ordained in that moment you have to so I was thrilled but but I was also if you know, it's a really kind of a Bittersweet thing to you know, that I had to engage that young man that way and that he had sat there through my whole ordination Council struggling with how he was going to ask that question that he did. I don't believe he really heard much of anything because he's figuring out how he was going to deal with that. I was thrilled.

25:59 I was thrilled that you know, I finally was going to get to do what I felt. Like I had been called to do from long long ago. And then my ordination was the actual service was just unbelievable the laying on of hands where people come for denied they put their hands on you and they bless you in their own way. It was amazing to feel the hands of all those people and a congregation full of gay people and straight people and ethnically diverse people and standing room only.

26:42 When we all came together it at Beulah Baptist Church. It was amazing and miraculous to me.

26:51 And I think in that moment something really special happened at Beulah.

26:59 That there's a spirit out there where when people go there they feel that sense of everybody's welcome. It's almost like there was a you talk about the way you when your mother turned a corner, right? And so your church Community turn the corner at that moment. Also. I have a very diverse congregation and I have people that if you went to them

27:25 In their homes were in their jobs and said, you know, what do you think about gay people? They probably wouldn't have anything positive to say, but when we come together at our church, the only question we asked is are you a human being and if you are a human being then you are welcome here and we love you and God loves you. And so there's something Beyond me Way Beyond me that happens. When We Gather in that little country church. So this is not a southern baptist you were you are ordained. I was ordained by a Southern Baptist Church, you are deemed a southern baptist and then would have been another story about a Southern Baptist Church because Southern Baptist believe in the autonomy of the local church.

28:20 And my father and I served his co-pastors for a year, and he resigned the end of 2005. So I took over as the only Soul pastor of the church January 1st 2006 two weeks later. I got a phone call from a minister of a Baptist Church in Milledgeville, and he said

28:45 And he's a man that really believes in following the scripture. He said I just wanted to let you know that there is a group of people men who are going to get together in a month and they are going to see what they can do to get you taken out as pastor of your church. Now my first my initial reaction was, you know, pull out the guns and go down fighting and it was course it was January and it was tax season already and I was sitting at my desk it was 8 at night. I was working late and I was just devastated because I had been on this and I'm finally getting to do what God wanted me to do and now here's this group of people that never cared about our church before really all of a sudden want to get rid of May.

29:34 Do you know who they were? I do not know who they were. I never found out and I thank God that I don't know who it was because she then I can let it go.

29:45 Sure, I never found out but I got a phone call that night from a dear friend of mine. That's the head of an AIDS Ministry in Knoxville, Tennessee. And he said I was just thinking about you and I burst into tears and told him and he knew a nose a man who's Big in the Crockett Baptist Fellowship is more moderate and he said well, let me call my friend and I'll call you back and this man was much older and wiser than me. And so what we decided to do was put a presentation before the church that we would vote to become independent that we would make this a positive move for our church because our church was founded in 1791 before the Southern Southern Baptist before the Georgia Baptist and before our association. So rather than going out fighting because nobody would have won that fight. Everybody would have lost

30:45 Most of all, the church would have lost we presented to the church that we want. We want to become independent again like we were in 1791 that we can serve God better that way and we got a unanimous vote.

31:01 And to this day, I have never heard another word about it because once we took ourselves out of those conventions, we took the power out of their heads. So we made a positive thing for our church, which was and now it's

31:20 What would you think what are things like at your church now?

31:24 You know, it's I have one particular member that I think that tells the story of what things are like he used to sit in the back of the church. He's a gay man negative things about the church, but he came to my ordination and has been coming to Beulah ever since but he sat in the back and during the benediction he would always tear out the back of the church and get to his car because he didn't want to have to speak and he didn't want to have to hug anybody and now he lingers he hugs everybody there is a

32:01 Sweet spirit in that place people say to me won't how do you deal with a gay issue from the pulpit and I got I don't don't it's not an issue. I don't talk about it. I have a young college couple to come to my church and they are so much in love and

32:21 Two women young girls and they'll sit all their all snuggled up for each other and I say I will pray as I'm standing in the Pulpit. I pray silently, you know, Lord, please.

32:34 Please let the spirit of God not let other people get upset by this.

32:43 So has the congregation changed are the people who were they are gone or I mean, we had one couple that left, but I knew they would as soon as Daddy left they didn't they didn't have anything to do with the case thing it had to do with the gender thing.

33:04 Look for the most part we have added not subtracted.

33:09 To our congregation

33:11 So it's just a non-issue. I mean people love the new me before.

33:19 And it's not something, you know, it's just so we don't talk about it. We don't not talk about it. I preached a sermon about a month ago. And I think I talked about gay issues about 4 because they applied to the sermon so I don't run away from that.

33:40 But I don't you know because people are people from so what I want to do is is preach the word of God to people.

33:51 And of course the Book of Micah talks about

33:55 What does the Lord require of you to do justice to love Mercy Mercy and walk humbly with your God and that is what we try to do at our church.

34:07 Do justice and love mercy and love people.

34:12 We have a woman that came in our church one Sunday. She she is just dirt dirt poor and she comes when she can she got the church that Sunday and I said,

34:23 I won't say her name but I don't imagine she even has the internet or whatever think about listening to these archives. But I said, so, how are you doing this morning? She said well, I had kind of a rough night last night cuz I had a bad toothache and you know, I just can't afford to go to the dentist. She said but I got a pair of pliers and I pull that tooth right out and she said I'm so much better today. So we have people that are just absolutely live in poverty. And then we have just average people and then, you know, we have a couple of people that have money.

34:58 Are very diverse. Where is the church? It's because it's not in Milledgeville. It's in a little town called Devereux Georgia, which is just a little bump in the road and you actually have to go down a dirt road to get to it.

35:17 But like I said, it was founded in 1791 and it was that the church is actually built on a couple of old Indian Crossroads.

35:28 I have a dear friend and he lost his wife the the day before my mother died, and I talked to him not too long ago and he said, you know, sometimes I just like to drive out to Beulah.

35:42 And just walk around the church and I just find such a spirit of peacefulness they are.

35:50 And one other thing I'd like to say about and brag about Beulah just a little bit and I know we're running short on time, but about six or seven years ago. We don't have any we don't spend our money on anything. And so we decided about six or seven years ago that we didn't need to be sitting on what little we had. So every six months we say, alright, how much is in the checking account who needs money and we give it all away and start over and we do that every 6 months. We pay our piano player. I make my living as an accountant.

36:28 And now you got a fun going to build a bathroom. That is the one thing. We have a porta Johnny and we hopefully by the end of 2011. We will actually have a real bathroom with a flush toilet.

36:41 A question sure.

36:45 To to be a pastor and a minister and be a woman and have like come to terms with your sexuality or you know, I love I love being a pastor and I love preaching and I feel very passionate about it. Very excited that that being a woman is is

37:11 For me, it's not an issue anymore that I was hope I know it's an issue in the greater world of of Baptist, but I feel very passionate about what I do and and I love it and I don't come out to people just to come out to them. But my friend Linda says that I don't have to she said people that encounter you are going to know but I love being a pastor. I love being a preacher and I love being a minister and I'm so glad I feel like that I have been called like Esther.

37:49 Which was part of my organization that I have been called to Beulah Baptist Church into our community for such a time as this and I feel like that my journey with God that all the places where I got off the path that those were very important in making me the person that I am today you and your dad's congregation voted to have you be the next Minister there. How did you feel like being accepted like that? They chosen you when my dad's church it had become my church by then and so I felt very I was thrilled because I didn't know how they would take it, you know, because it's one thing to let me fill in it. But then when you say, you know, you're going to be it then it becomes a totally different thing. So I felt very empowered and very encouraged that they recognized what I was already doing and said,

38:49 You know, we want to affirm this we see that you're already preaching and pastoring and ministering. And so now we want to affirm it. And so that was a that was a wonderful affirmation for me.

39:04 You said they voted to have our commitment ceremony there and I wanted to say that.

39:15 I came to Milledgeville Georgia after 28 years in New York City. I have certain number of stereotypes. I am not a religious person until I really want you our story to be heard because I think certainly preconceptions that I carried here proved to be you proved to be false. But one of the things that happen then in New York City if I had it the commitment ceremony, we've been all gay people on a few straight people in Milledgeville, Georgia. It was all straight people. I remember them babies crying in the back of the church and you know, it was all straight people and a few gay people and it was really just so beautiful and authentic to be in this place and have the community come together and a firm.

40:09 And witness the blessing of our relationship, so it was really a an incredibly special.

40:18 Thing for me and I was very grateful for you to do that. I was I was so blessed to be able to perform your your ceremony and your service it was it was just such a blessing for me and and for the people and I think that it says something overall about the spirit of that little church that we believe that we can make a difference and that we we're making a difference just spot just by loving people and that is to me what it's all about, you know.

40:54 It's the other thing I would say are we only have a minute is that everyone kept calling it a wedding and I kept like, you know, we're not and I kind of tried to politicize it, you know, like okay, but I was also you know, like being very clear we can't get married but I should have just gone with the wedding cuz they they all saw it as a wedding. That was how it that's how it was perceived. And that's how we kind of know that's how we kind of Rowlett Beulah Baptist Church about the people and and and caring about the people and people are more important than anything else and I think that's

41:40 I think that's one reason that I can be the person that God called me to be in that my mother and daddy raised me to be is because people are more important than things.

41:53 10 buildings or cars or money laws are laws and see it didn't matter to those people. It was a wedding that matter what you call it. It was a wedding if it looks like a duck is a duck exactly.

42:08 Well, we really appreciate it. I'm so honored that you wanted to do this Doug and show you were you're so special to me. And I know we're wrapping up and I just want to say thank you for for believing that my little story is important to a bigger history. I thank you for that.

42:29 I want to thank you for being a minister and Pastor to me and to us.

42:34 Cuz it it it it goes beyond the context of our interactions.

42:42 It makes waves elsewhere.

42:45 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.