Part Three: Why September Should Be “Willie Frye” Month (For Quakers & Justice Seekers)

Why September Should Be “Willie Frye” Month — Part Three

[Part One is here.]
[Part Two is here.]
[Part Four is here.]

Part  Three: In the first two installments, we followed Willie Frye Jr. from his origin in a fundamentalist, staunchly segregationist southern culture, into the Friends pastoral ministry in North Carolina, through a religious evolution that moved him far from his origins, prepared him to grapple with crucial issues of war and racial justice of his day and location, and simultaneously to face the opposition and conflict

such a faithful encounter evoked.

We left him at a moment of very personal and private encounter with yet another crucial emerging reality and question, in the person of his son Rick. . . .

 

13.— 1970s (uncertain date) What Willie’s son Rick needed to tell him was that he was gay. And whether spoken or unspoken, this disclosure carried with it an existential question.

That question was:

“What are you going to do about it?”

We don’t know what Willie said in reply. But he did record some reactions. First, this question had not been on his radar; at least, not as one affecting him in his family. For that matter, among his fundamentalist mentors, the issue was condemned as an “abomination” which, according to their reading of a biblical mandate (Ephesians 5:3) “must not even be named among you, as God’s people.”

(And more unnerving, in the “Old Testament” — Leviticus 20:13 — it was a capital  offense: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.“

No, this issue had not been on Willie’s radar. But now it was, up close and personal.

Evidently, he didn’t panic, or reject his son. Kathy records that, instead,

“Willie began to research the biology and psychology of homosexuality. He concluded that Rick’s sexual orientation was not a choice, but was simply a part of his identity. The cultural and societal environment in the 1970s compelled the Fryes to keep Rick’s orientation private because they were protective of his physical safety. However, Rick’s partner was always included in family occasions.”

This is written with much equanimity; but to anyone who lived and struggled through these years of agitation, HIV plague and moral panic, it is quite remarkable, down to the point of the “construction” of an invisible “closet,” in which Willie’s family and its expanded, accepting reality was folded protectively. That closeted family status was maintained for nearly two decades, until events forced a change.

14. 1980 — Willie left WSFM and active pastoral work, and went into business for several years.

Kathy: “As Willie neared the age of fifty (1981), he became concerned about NC Yearly Meeting’s paltry pastor’s pension [Note: “paltry” seems too soft a term: the pensions topped out at a shameful, starvation rate of $450/mo after 30 years of service.] He decided to leave the pastoral ministry in order to build his personal retirement funds.” He successfully operated a clothing store, built & sold houses, operated a seafood restaurant & indicates these projects achieved his goal.

[No doubt financing retirement was a real, and pressing concern. Yet one wonders whether Willie was at all influenced toward this change by a bloody all-out racial confrontation in November 1979: a far-left group organized a “Death to the Klan” rally in nearby Greensboro, and dared the Klan to show up, packing heat. Greensboro had been a Klan hotbed in the early ’60s, and some Klansmen (plus Neo-Nazis) showed up, and when the gun smoke cleared, five of the leftists were dead, several others wounded. The Klan/Nazi shooters were acquitted twice, the confrontation drew national attention, and its unresolved outcome  left community traumas that have not yet been healed 40-plus years later.]

15. 1988– Willie rejoined Winston-Salem Meeting as a member. He had developed an interest in paranormal authors, e.g., Jane Roberts (1929-1984; a medium, channeler of a “spirit” she named  Seth); and Edgar Cayce (1877-1945; who for many years gave medical and other readings from trance states to a nationwide following).

Others shared this interest. Kathy: “Friends at Winston-Salem Friends Meeting also became interested in these documents and asked Willie to facilitate a discussion group around the ‘Seth Material.’ He enjoyed this discussion group during the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

But the group also stirred more uproar: Willie was accused of “teaching New Age” heresies, ideas and practices some called demonic and/or satanic. Since he was not then a meeting staff member, though, he could not be fired.

16. 1992 — Willie returned to ministry, when called to pastor Mt. Airy Friends Meeting in Surry County [on the NC-VA border, another spot in   “Mayberry”]. Mt. Airy Meeting proved to be as loving and supportive as Goldsboro Friends Meeting had been twenty years before. That was a good thing, as there were more uproars to come in response to Willie’s record of heterodoxy. Some of these came to the floor in the 1992 NCYM annual sessions, where a proposal was introduced to formally condemn all LGBT and other non-hetero lifestyles.

Similar declarations had been presented to most of the pastoral and evangelical yearly meetings; many of the pastoral groups adopted them, often by trampling on Quaker processes to override strong objections. In North Carolina, the anti-gay activists had to start from scratch, for while their Faith and Practice praised marriage, on the matter of homosexuality it simply repeated what Jesus had said about it, word for word.

Which was absolutely nothing.

Here’s what was proposed to remedy what they thought must have been the divine savior’s one human oversight:

QUOTE :“We, the members of North Carolina Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, do state, unequivocally, that we hold all sexual immorality, such as homosexuality, fornication, adultery, rape, incest, etc., to be sin in accordance with the Holy Scripture.”

But in NCYM, after long and often heated debate,Quaker process held up, as  there was clearly no unity (or as some call, “consensus”) to approve this minute.

18. 1993 — The issues kept bubbling. The following summer, Willie wrote a statement entitled Homosexuality: An Attempt at Dialogue. It was distributed at the 1993 sessions, which resumed deliberation on the 1992 declaration. (The statement is online as a PDF file at this link.)

Alas, Willie’s statement did not evoke the dialogue he sought. Instead, it was met by a campaign to rebuke him, remove him from the yearly meeting Recording Committee, of which he was serving as Clerk, and revoke his status as a pastor in NC Yearly Meeting. That is, the goal was basically to banish him from the community he had served for forty years.

Not only was Willie charged with heretical beliefs regarding homosexuality, but also accused of disseminating “New Age” propaganda.”

Again, however, despite more vehement debate, no agreement was reached; the anti-gay declaration and the anti-Willie sanctions also hung fire. Tensions and tempers were rising, and the NCYM Clerk announced there would be a special called YM session in the autumn to continue the quest for resolution.

20. 1993 — But the October special session reached no conclusion either. Instead, new and angry demands were made for a purge of “unsoundness” [i.e., support for accepting LGBT persons], by expulsion of individuals & meetings, or even a division of the entire NCYM.

At long last, it was Agnes Frye who had had enough of the homophobic rants. Her patience exhausted, she kicked open the family closet door:

QUOTE:“Agnes [Frye] stood and pronounced that she would not sit silently and listen to people condemn her son.

Many in the crowd booed. Once again, they [the Frye family] began to receive hate mail and to suffer abuse at the hands of members of NC Yearly Meeting.”

Don’t miss the dramatic conclusion in Part Four