The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Baptist minister, was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, having served at Harvard University and in the Memorial Church since 1970. He died February 28 of complications from a stroke.I met Gomes a few years ago at the home of mutual friends. I remember most his accent - it was almost English, but not quite. Yet he was born and raised somewhere in Massachusetts, he told me. He was part of that crowd of old America, with those fascinating accents you just don't hear anymore. I'd heard of Gomes for the first time, I think, in the early 90s while working on gay issues - probably because of the NYT op ed linked to below. He really knew how to take on the religious right, and more generally, so-called "religious" argument against homosexuality.Widely regarded as one of America’s leading preachers, Gomes participated in the inaugurations of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was named Clergy of the Year by the organization Religion in American Life in 1998; in 1979 Time magazine called him “one of the seven most distinguished preachers in America.”
…A self-described cultural conservative, Gomes stunned the Harvard community and reluctantly made national news when he came out as a homosexual in 1991 in response to gay bashing on campus. “I don’t like being the main exhibit, but this was an unusual set of circumstances, in that I felt I had a particular resource that nobody else there possessed,” he told The New Yorker in 1996.
Alan links to a great NYT op ed Gomes wrote in 1992 about gays and God, explaining how the religious right's interpretation of the Bible, vis-a-vis the gays, is simply wrong. It's worth a read.
I regret not staying in touch with him.
