ROTHKO CHAPEL Holy for All" After years of a little-known policy disallowing gay unions, the Rothko Chapel has decided that all marriages within its sacred space will be treated equally by Ann Walton Sieber

"The Rothko Chapel is like a big tree: it has a mysterious beauty and offers hospitable shade to everyone." –first line in the Rothko Chapel brochure

I’m happy to report that on Saturday, March 17, 2001, the board of the Rothko Chapel voted to include same-sex commitment ceremonies, so that the same guidelines for heterosexual marriages will now apply to gay unions.

"It will be just the same thing," says Rothko Chapel board president Sissy Farenthold. "No difference."

Most people did not realize that Rothko Chapel didn’t permit same-sex unions–and most who found out were aghast and confused, for it so conflicts with Rothko’s reputation as a far-sighted leader in international human rights, with the (Jimmy) Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize and the Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award bringing to Houston such international heroes as South African Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and Nelson Mandela. The memorial for Matthew Shepard was held at Rothko, as were far-too-many memorials for community members who died from AIDS.

Because the chapel is combination museum and religious setting, the 30-year-old guidelines regarding marriage are quite restrictive, according to Sissy, who has had two sons get married at Rothko. "Only 75 people," she says. "No candles because all the smoke alarms go off, the ceremony can’t exceed 30 minutes–no flowers. And," she adds, "the marriage has to be performed by an ordained minister."

The decision not to include gay marriages was made by Dominique DeMenil back in the ’80s. "She thought long and hard about it," says Suna Umari, current executive director of the Rothko Chapel. Suna explains Mrs. DeMenil’s rationale: When she and her husband, John, were first contemplating establishing a religious place, they traveled the world consulting and gaining the benediction of religious leaders. "They did not feel they had the authority to dictate religious matters," Suna says. They decided that although the chapel would be ecumenical and nondenominational, aligned with no particular religion, all religious/spiritual activity conducted at the chapel should be within one or another religious tradition, be it Buddhist, Moslem, Jewish, or Christian. In this way, they wanted to offer the chapel as a sacred art place in which religious institutions could come together, but not as an independent religious institution in and of itself.

It was within this reasoning that Mrs. DeMenil decided not to include same-sex unions. "She was very very supportive of gay people and very much in favor of gay unions and supported them wholeheartedly," Suna explains. "She just didn’t see the chapel as the place for that. In a similar way, she didn’t think baptisms should be done in the chapel. Or people who wanted to get married without a minister. She didn’t see it as discrimination."

The person who first found out that gay unions were barred and started agitating for change was citizen provocateur Gene Harrington, who is a longtime law professor at Texas Southern University. Gene is well known for his decades of activism; he expended great effort in earlier challenges to Texas section 21.06, the so-called sodomy statute, and was perhaps the leading HIV activist in the early ’90s, challenging the health department to cease its hands-off attitude in funding HIV treatment. Gene has a style that is quick-witted and biting, outspoken and humorous–endearing if he’s with you, possibly provoking if he’s not.

Back in December 1998, Gene started calling and writing the Rothko Chapel, asking if they allowed same-sex commitment/marriage ceremonies. In one of his letters to the chapel, he wrote: "To allow gay/lesbians to memorialize their dead in your hallowed place but to deny them the right to commemorate their loving commitment would appear hypocritical and unconscionable." (Privately, Gene jokes, "My God, no gay man would want to get married there anyway, because they don’t allow flowers.")

Gene says he had trouble getting a response of any type from the chapel. Gene spoke of the situation to his friend Sissy Farenthold, who was on the Rothko board, and who has been a longtime champion of gay rights, going back to when she was the keynote speaker at the historic gay Town Meeting in 1978.

Sissy brought the matter up at the next board meeting, which was in March 2000. Because the board has quite a few famous national members (such as Atlanta mayor Andrew Young), it meets only once a year. An ad hoc task force was appointed to look into the gay marriage issue, with members Rabbi Robert Kahn of Congregation Emanu El, Rev. Bob Schnaibly of the First Unitarian Church, the Rev. Helen Havens of St. Stephen’s Episcopal, and Sissy. The committee came back with the recommendation to change the guidelines to include same-sex commitment ceremonies/marriages, but the final decision had to be made by the board at their 2001 annual meeting. At the board meeting this March 17, they decided "overwhelmingly" to change the guidelines to include all couples under their marriage guidelines.

This has been an issue that I’d known about almost since I came to OutSmart in fall 1999. Soon after I started as editor, I was befriended by Gene Harrington, whom I already knew by reputation as the firebrand leader of much of the AIDS activism of the early ’90s. Energized by Gene as well as other behind-the-scene insiders, I steeled myself to go confront Suna Umari, the executive director of the chapel, and who, I was told, had treated Gene and others badly when they approached her on the subject of same-sex marriage. Although not generally a conflict-oriented person, I’ve done my share of in-your-face investigative reporting, and I plotted what would be the best way to take Suna by surprise so that she would talk to me, for I feared that if I tried to approach her and set up an interview, she’d turn me down. I thought I’d try dropping by the Rothko Chapel office and asking for an "on the spot" interview.

I was discussing the matter with a trusted older friend of mine, May Mansoor Munn, who is in my Quaker meeting and is Palestinian (and who was herself married at Rothko Chapel). In her early 60s, May has a gentle yet persistent character. "The Arab way," she said diplomatically when she heard of my plans to confront Suna, "is to break bread together." She suggested I ask Suna to lunch– "we’ll call it a fact-finding mission," she said–and agreed to come along. To my great surprise, Suna agreed. Here was this supposed Muslim foe to gay causes having lunch with the editor of the gay magazine!

We met at Riva’s and it was very pleasant. Suna was politely willing to discuss the matter of the gay marriages, explaining how Mrs. DeMenil had arrived at her position. It was also clear that Suna was under quite a bit of pressure in trying to guide this esteemed organization now that its patron had passed on. She told me to be patient, that the board needed time to sort matters out. I said I could understand needing time, but that we would be watching the issue, and I would check in with her occasionally about its progress. I wanted her to know I was a watchdog, a friendly watchdog, but one that was monitoring them nonetheless.

Meanwhile, OutSmart had been benefiting from Gene’s assistance in connecting us with intelligent writers and sources. But while we were enjoying the benefits of Gene’s assistance, I felt ashamed that I was doing nothing in the magazine for his cause celebre–especially after he sent me a Xerox of a letter he’d written to the chapel, writing across the top by hand, "Am I the only one who thinks this homophobic practice deplorable?"

I wasn’t sure if my decision to hold back on publishing anything in the magazine was sound news judgment, or merely timidity and cowardice. I wasn’t sure if the chapel really was moving forward in navigating a sensitive political terrain behind closed doors, or if they were just stalling and hoping we’d all go away. "Power concedes nothing without a struggle," I thought on the one hand. But then "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," I thought on the other. I stopped calling Gene for lunch because I felt too embarrassed and confused. I tried to do some behind-the-scenes pot-stirring, to no avail.

When the board meeting was about two months away, Gene put his campaign decrying Rothko’s policy into hyperdrive, gathering letters and signed statements from State Reps. Jessica Farrar and Garnet Coleman, the Stonewall Lawyers Association, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, even one signed by every Unitarian minister in Houston. The letter that Gene wrote and that many signed was rather shrill, saying things like, "To claim that the policy is being reviewed and to continually ask patience (for years) while this basic violation of human rights is held in place is to add cowardice to the original act of intolerance." When I called up Suna to discuss a possible article, she asked me not to contribute to the "polarization." I could understand her feelings. Of course I thought the policy was wrong, but I also understood that real change takes time. Whenever I called Suna up, she was always cordial and seemed to speak frankly with me, whereas other community members reported a different experience.

The outcome to this story is a happyone, thank goodness. Sissy says, "I told Gene I was going to make sure this happened come hell or high water," and she did. It’s hard to know how this progress was actually accomplished. Did Gene’s amassing of the troops help give Sissy the leverage she needed to bring the change to pass? Or did it make more difficult an already touchy situation? I give this background account only because it explores a question that is forever on my mind: How can we most effectively bring about change? What’s in the best interests of coming together and creating conditions of respect and understanding for all humans?

After the decision, I called Suna one last time, and she sounded pleased and relieved about the outcome. Now that this controversy is satisfactorily settled, does she see a role for the gay community at the chapel?

"They’ve always had a role," she says a little exasperatedly. "They’ve always been part of the chapel. It’s very difficult when people start separating themselves off and saying I’m over here and you’re over there. She [Mrs. DeMenil] saw the chapel as a place to introduce people to each other in a way that would bring understanding. Let’s be human first. I think that’s what the chapel’s about. Let’s come together in this space and just be ourselves. That’s the power of the chapel and that’s what makes it holy."