In memory of Louie Clay, LGBTQ church activist, founder of Integrity, Rutgers professor

I light a memorial candle for Louie Clay (né Louie Crew), longtime LGBTQ church activist who founded of the Episcopal LGBTQ group Integrity in 1974. He died on Nov. 27, 2019 at age 82, peacefully at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, with his husband by his side, a few days after suffering a stroke.

Updated Dec. 6: A memorial service / Requiem Mass for Louie will be held at 10 a.m. on Feb. 20 at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey.

In memory of

Louie Clay

LGBTQ church activist, founder of Integrity, Rutgers professor of English

Dec. 9, 1936 – Nov. 27, 2019

Erman Louie Clay (né Erman Louie Crew, Jr.) was born Dec. 9, 1936, in Anniston, Alabama. He was professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University. He is best known for his long and successful campaign for LGBTQ equality in the church. After almost 40 years together, he married Ernest Clay in 2013 and assumed his husband’s last name.

His accomplishments include serving on the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1976-78. He was elected to serve on the Episcopal Church’s 38-member executive council from 2000 to 2006.

Clay was way ahead of his time in many ways — in 1974, when he founded Integrity USA, the national Episcopal LGBTQ organization. And in 1980, when he imagined the possibility of a queer Christ in a poem that asks, “Christ, what did you feel when your beloved John lay across your lap?”

Much of Clay’s best and most influential writing is gathered together in “Letters from Samaria: The Prose and Poetry of Louie Crew Clay.” It includes work written from 1974 until its publication in 2015. The book’s often surprising brave, witty, matter-of-fact self-disclosure has been described as “very much like chatting with Louie.”

He entered eternal life on the anniversary of the assassination of another LGBTQ-rights activist, Harvey Milk. The date will link these two LGBTQ saints for eternity. When I added Louie today to the alphabetical list of names in my LGBTQ Saints series, he took an honored place right after gay Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd.

The announcement of his passing from Elizabeth Kaeton concludes:

Even as we make our way to the grave, our song is Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Or, as our Louie would say, “Joy Anyway!”

A personal memory of Louie Clay

My first and most vivid memory of Louie was in 1992, when the National Council of Churches voted to deny observer status to the LGBTQ-affirming denomination Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). I was there as MCC ecumenical staff as during the terrible vote. I cannot put into words how stressful and upsetting it was for me as a naive young lesbian minister and for all the LGBTQ representatives from every denomination. It was particularly sickening when a closeted gay Episcopalian voted against us. We felt alone and rejected.

One ray of hope came in the form of a fax — and this was back when faxes were a new and rare technology. I was leading a meeting of the LGBTQ caucus at the NCC when hotel staff delivered a fax to our meeting room. A fax?! Who would send us a fax? Louie Crew, that’s who!

Louie’s letter of encouragement couldn’t have come at a better time or been more welcome. It was like a ray of sunshine that lifted the spirits of the entire group of queers, myself included.

At the time I was surprised that Louie was even aware of our struggle, let alone cared enough to fax us an inspiring message. But I came to know that Louie was that kind of person, well informed and caring.

Tributes and resources on Louie Clay

His writing has been published widely, with more than 2,300 poems, articles, and essays in print. Books that he edited include “A Book of Revelations: Lesbian and Gay Episcopalians Tell Their Own Stories,” a 1991 collection of 52 biographies, and “The Gay Academic” (1978).

Integrity past president Susan Russell produced a video retrospective about Louie Clay in 2015.

Ernest Clay, left, and Louie Crew were legally married on August 22, 2013. This photo shows the happy couple, newly married. ( Wikimedia Commons

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Related links:

Louie Clay profile at LGBT Religious Archives Network

Louie Clay profile at the Liberal Spirit

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

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