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Freda Smith is an early pioneer in LGBTI, feminist, and MCC advocacy. Freda,
following Robert Kennedy’s assassination on June 5, 1968--at a time when the
majority of LGBT persons were closeted--felt compelled to
reveal her orientation as a lesbian as well as a feminist to work to change laws
criminalizing Homosexuality and discriminating against women.
This was "before Stonewall." Homosexuality was a criminal offense,
condemned by the church and diagnosed as a mental disease.
In preparation for her advocacy, Freda entered California State University
Sacramento, majoring first in language arts (English, speech, journalism)
and ultimately graduating with a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology.
She was licensed by the State of California as a Marriage and Family Therapist.
At CSUS, Freda served as an openly lesbian member of the Women’s Studies Board
helping to develop the second Women’s Studies Program in the State of California.
She was also active in the CSUS Gay Studies movement which established the first
gay studies program in the U.S. She was a frequent speaker at University
rallies and served as Student Cultural Program Director for the University.
In 1971, following the March on Sacramento to support a state bill introduced
by Willie Brown to legalize homosexual acts in private between consenting
adults--Freda Smith and Troy Perry were featured speakers.
Assemblyman Willie Brown, an African-American legislator called the bill: "The Gay
Anti-lynching Bill, " saying it was necessary before all others to insure Civil Rights
for the gay community. Freda was the feminist speaker and Troy was the religious
leader who had just led the march from Oakland to publicize the event.
Freda’s speech was described by the Advocate as one of the two most militant
addresses given at the rally, (Speaking for Our Lives: Historic Speeches and
Rhetoric for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1892-2000), edited by Robert B. Ridinger;
Harrington Park Press: Frieda SmithTells It Like It Is; August 28, 1971).
Following the speech Freda was named co-chair of the California Committee
for Sexual Law Reform and worked for the passage of Assemblyman Willie
Brown's consenting adult law.
Photo from The Advocate, May 7, 1975. Lobbying for California's
"Consenting Adults Law" L–R: California State Senator George Moscone
(later Mayor of San Francisco, murdered with Harvey Milk by Dan White
in 1978), George Raya, Rev. James Sandmire, Rev. Freda Smith,
Gary Hess, Assemblyman Willie Brown (author of AB-489 which
decriminalized gay and lesbian relationships in the State of California)
The "Consenting Adults" bill was introduced each year until it passed
into law in 1975. Freda testified before legislative committees repeatedly.
It was during this lobbying effort that Freda wrote her narrative poem:
"Dear Dora/Dangerous Derek Diesel Dyke," which she read to a group
of legislators which included Lt. Merv Dymally who, historically, voted
to break the Senate deadlock to pass the legislation.
Early in the law reform lobbying effort, Freda became active in The
Universal Fellowship of Metroplitan Community Churches.
She was licensed into MCC ministry in 1972 and was elected pastor
of Sacramento Metropolitan Community Church the same year.
Pastor of Sacramento, California MCC
(1972–2005)
When Freda entered MCC, the leadership was overwhelmingly male. As
a feminist Freda went to work encouraging women to become active and to
change church by-laws to include women in all leadership positions. At the
1973, General Conference in Atlanta, GA, Freda stood to amend every gender
pronoun in the UFMCC By-laws to include both men and women.
MCC ultimately became a leader in Christian social action,
championing the ordination of women, inclusive language, and a
theology of inclusion for all people.
Freda taught Christian Feminism at Samaritan Theological Institute,
a religious institution established to provide instruction to MCC clergy
and lay people before seminary doors were open to out LGBTI people.
Teaching at Samaritan Theological
Institute (UFMCC)
Freda became the first woman ordained to the UFMCC ministry and was
first elected to the Board of Elders in 1973. She was re-elected as elder for
five more terms during which time she represented the Church as liaison
to Europe, Canada, Australia, and U.S. Districts, and as Vice-Moderator
of the UFMCC. She appeared nationally on the Tomorrow Show in
the U.S., on Canada AM, and on local broadcasts where she frequently
debated right-wing religious political advocates.
Board of Elders Members: March on Washington: Nancy Wilson, Clerk;
Don Eastman, Treasurer; Jean White, World Extension;
Troy Perry, Moderator; Freda Smith, Vice Moderator.
In addition to visiting and encouraging nearly every MCC church group
in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Mexico and great Britian during her tenure,
Freda simultaneously served as Senior pastor of MCC Sacramento
from 1972 to 2005 when she retired to become Director of the
Reverend Elder Freda Smith Ministries and an activist/writer to
preserve the early history of the LGBTI Christian Church.
The Pacific School of Religion, in 2010, established the Freda Smith
Feminist Preaching Prize.
Freda & Kathleen
Freda and her life partner, Kathleen Meadows have been
together since 1974.
Freda calls the MCC movement the most exciting church since
the book of Acts. In an address to the 2007 UFMCC International
Conference in Scottsdale she spoke of the relationship between
the church in the book of Acts and the history of the LGBTI
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches:
[The] achievement of the church in the book of Acts was
accompanied by passionate, theological clashes over scripture,
over custom, over all of the isms: racism, sexism, classism,
over intense personal disagreements and rash actions;
certainly often biting off more than they possibly could chew,
facing opposition and persecution from "powers and principalities
and the forces of evil in high places." All the while rushing
headlong into history. We can know this because the
Book of Acts was written down...
We can write our history. How like the early church in the Book of Acts
we were joined together in our many differences by the Holy Spirit to
become a church reaching out to a fragmented, disenfranchised,
closeted community.
While we still have the voices to tell; let us tell of working,
marching, fasting, praying, blending our spirituality with
activism in order to change unjust laws. Let us tell of the
struggle to turn our isms into wasms (sexism, racism, elitism);
to be inclusive--not only in language, but in every sense of the word.
Tell of our striving to educate our clergy when so many seminary
doors were closed to them. Tell of our straining to reach our people
where ever they were.. Tell of our Struggle to balance all of our
theological understandings to become ecumenical in our worship.
As Troy Perry was wont to say: "We're going to treat you in so many
different ways you're bound to like some of them" (and dislike, too.)
We can tell our personal stories of those early, tempestuous years. . .
Freda is dedicated to telling that story.
Biographical Notes
Early Years
Freda Smith was born Mary Alfreda Smith on November 22, 1935, to Alfred and Mary Smith in Pocatello, Idaho.
Alfred and Mary had married while at college in Enid Oklahoma, and moved to Idaho shortly before Freda was born. (Alfred was 21 years old and Mary was 20 years old). This was during the depths of the Depression. Alfred found work as a mechanic at the Union Pacific Railroad. Later he would be employed as a language teacher (German, Spanish, French, Italian) and Mary would fulfill her early aptitude and education in math and science working for the U.S. Navy.
The early years were difficult. Three children – Freda, Lydia and Alfred, Jr. – were born in the first four years of marriage. The small family moved to a remote rural area south of Pocatello. They were accompanied by Alfred's grandmother, Nazarene preacher Lydia Harriet Smith, who had rescued Alfred from a Denver orphanage and raised him in the small churches where she served. The Nazarene Church and its ministry was the focus of Freda's early life.
Baby picture with great-grandmother,
a Nazarene preacher
Rural southeastern Idaho, in the late thirties and through the war years, was largely a LDS (Mormon) settlement. The Smith family was the only "Gentile" family "south of town." However all families – both Mormon and Nazarene – were church-goers whose religion dictated the customs of life.
As Nazarenes, the Smith family (shepherded by Freda's great- grandmother) avoided liquor, smoking, cards, dancing, profanity, and any "near occasion of sin." Mormons danced, while to Nazarenes dancing was a sin. Nazarenes drank coffee, which to Mormons violated the "Word of Wisdom." Aside from these and other surface differences in religious practices and beliefs, the rural southern Idaho community members were united against sin in any form and for chastity, holiness, and a strong work ethic. They had no apparent knowledge or understanding of alternate lifestyles.
Freda attended church Sunday mornings and nights and the Wednesday evening mid-week services, as well as weekly home prayer meetings and a home atmosphere of hymns, Bible study, and prayers. The Nazarene theology embraced salvation and sanctification (the second work of grace), eschewed worldliness (i.e. movies, etc.), yet presented a joyful, optimistic faith and an abundance of musical celebration. Altar calls were regular Sunday night occasions where kneelers struggled against temptation and despair, wept, and were blessed by rapturous renewals of faith and a sense of the undeniable presence of God. These themes of great spiritual striving, the poetical thrust of Biblical drama presented in word and song, and the sense of a divine providence became a sacred "calling" very early in Freda's life. She determined that she would either be a preacher or a poet.
Just before starting elementary
school, Pocatello, Idaho
Freda entered the first grade in 1941, shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The war years had a profound effect on her as they had on so many that experienced the heroism, and sacrifice of the times.
Following the war years and the death of Freda's great- grandmother, the family began to drift from the Nazarene Church and she independently left to become a member of the Salvation Army. The fire and passion of the Salvation Army, preaching "with heart to God and hand to [man] humanity," coupled with the familiar hymns and the salvation/sanctification struggle for souls and a compassion for the lost, the least, and the forgotten, stirred her early "call" and she began the process of becoming an officer.
It was also at this time that Freda realized her lesbianism. True to her early training and upbringing she entered into spiritual battle, seeking to overcome her nature and to find a state of sanctification where all of these feelings of love would be taken from her. During this struggle she left Idaho to live with her aunt and uncle in Texas. While there, she read every book in the library she could find on the subjects of homosexuality, lesbianism, inversion, sodomy, and other names given to the "disorder." Each book seemed more condemning and frightening than the one before. There was no account of a sane, healthy gay or lesbian person; all were criminal, insane, perverted degenerates. Homosexuality during the early 1950s was universally condemned as criminal and sinful, as well as a mental illness. Freda spent long evenings on her knees at home and at the altar in the Salvation Army Citadel where she worshiped. Nothing changed her heart.
Freda now looks back and sees that God was in the prayer-answering business. However, God did not want to change her heart. God wanted to use Freda's passion – along with the passion of others who were similarly struggling – to change the church and the world.
Leaving Texas, Freda returned briefly to Pocatello for a term at Idaho State College (now ISU) majoring in speech/journalism. She was still praying for a "cure" and was a passionate speaker and a part of the debate team as she had been in high school. She had a strong calling to preach and like Jeremiah there was a fire in her bones: "Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of [him]God , nor speak any more in [his] God's name. But [his] God's word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.’” (Jeremiah 20:9 KJV)
However, the fire in her bones ultimately gave over to a realization that she could no more change her orientation than she could change her height, eye color, or humanity. Following the biggest gay witch hunt in U.S. history in Boise (1955-56), she determined to leave Idaho and find "others like her." In California, Freda found the gay community and became a closet Christian. As she once hid her lesbian identity from the church , now she hid her sense of God's calling upon her life from her friends in the gay community.
Passionate about human rights and activism, Freda was active in Bobby Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign and, after his assassination, decided to "come out" publicly as a lesbian as well as a feminist and to work to change laws in California. This was "before Stonewall," and very few members of the gay community were open about their orientation. Homosexuality was a criminal offense in California, as well as condemned by the church and diagnosed as a mental disease. Freda became co-chair of the California Committee for Sexual Law Reform and worked for the passage of Assemblyman Willie Brown's consenting adult law. It was during this lobbying effort that she wrote her narrative poem Dear Dora/Dangerous Derek Diesel Dyke which she read to a group of legislators which included Lt. Merv Dymally who voted to break the Senate deadlock to pass the legislation.
Early in the law reform lobbying effort, Freda learned of the Metropolitan Community Church which had been founded by the Rev. Troy Perry in 1968. Realizing that she could fulfill the calling to preach and to minister which had never left her spirit, Freda became active in MCC.
Freda Speaking at the March on Washington Wedding Ceremony
Rev Freda's Vision
"BRINGING THE GOOD NEWS TO THE WORLD"
REV FREDA'S VISION
THIS MINISTRY IS GOING TO STAND UP
and
THIS MINISTRY IS GOING TO SPEAK UP
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO SHUT UP
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO LET UP
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO GIVE UP
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO GIVE IN
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO GIVE OUT
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO WEAR OUT
and
THIS MINISTRY IS NEVER GOING TO BURN OUT
but
THIS MINISTRY IS GOING TO WIN OUT
and
REACH OUT
to
EVERY ONE WHO HAS BEEN LEFT OUT
Letter to Dr. Laura
An anonymous letter for people who see themselves as strict scriptural purists.Aren't we glad that Jesus fulfilled the law ("It is finished") for all of us "whosoevers." John 3:16
Dear Dr. Laura, Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them. a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them? b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense. d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians? e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die? i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves? j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14) I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.
An Evangelist's Prayer
When I Stand Before GOD at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and that I could say, "I used everything that you gave me."
About Freda Smith
Rev.Elder FredaSmith
The Rev. Elder Freda Smith is the former Vice-Moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches; a political activist in California; and an advocate for women's and minority concerns. She is widely known for her tireless advocacy and concern for GLBTI and minority rights. She has been recognized by the Sacramento History Museum as ""Woman of Courage,"" and was named ""Woman of the Year"" by the California State Legislature in 1996. Smith entered the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in 1971.
She first met the Reverend Elder Troy Perry on the steps of the Capitol of the State of California where they were both speakers for a rally to pass the ""Consenting Adults Law,"" to decriminalize gay relationships in California. During a lobbying effort for the passage of the bill, Freda read her narrative poem, ""Dear Dora/Dangerous Derek Diesel Dyke,"" to a select group of legislators which included Lt. Governor Merv Dymally. Dymally was visibly moved by the poem and stated that the poem had ""opened his eyes."" Later, Dymally historically broke the tie that had deadlocked the California Senate to pass California's Consenting Adults Law.
Freda was an early champion of women's concerns and was instrumental in spearheading the revision of UFMCC Bylaws to include women at every level of ministry. She was the first woman ordained to the UFMCC ministry and was first elected to the Board of Elders in 1973. She was re-elected as elder for five more terms during which time she served as World Church Extension Elder, liaison to Europe, Canada, Australia, and U.S. Districts, and as Vice-Moderator of the UFMCC. She appeared nationally on the Tomorrow Show in the U.S., on Canada AM, and on local broadcasts where she frequently debated right-wing religious political advocates.
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