Stoles tell tale of ostracism in the church

[kweerwolf]

Standing at the front of McKinley Presbyterian Church this month, Martha Juillerat held up a green linen liturgical stole embroidered with flowers.

"This is Ralph," she told the congregation. His family sent the stole to Juillerat, saying he had been killed in a hate crime in 1989. Ralph had been certified as a lay pastor in the Methodist Church and had served with the youth ministry.

Then she lifted a red silk stole edged in gold fringe from the back of a chair. This one, she said, came from a woman whose father, an ordained minister, killed himself after he had struggled to be straight. "Let the shame stop," Juillerat read from a letter attached to the stole.

Juillerat directs Shower of Stoles, a traveling display of more than 1,000 stoles representing people, most of them clergy, who feel they were forced to leave their churches because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The exhibit is aimed at showing others how that lack of acceptance hurts churches.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0510280102oct28,1,558710.story