We Believe?
Political LifeWhile these groups provided religious and social spaces, they were also political. Jerry Brennan, the founder of Dignity/Central PA, involved the group in advocacy for LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination protections. Steven Leshner said “it was maybe only within a few weeks of my being involved that John and […] Jerry [and I], went to the Capitol to lobby for gay rights.” The AIDs Crisis had a significant effect on both groups, impacting much of MCCs male clergy, such as the founder of MCC Lancaster, Arthur Runyan, who died of AIDs in 1984.
"Dignity became the forefront here in Harrisburg area fighting for rights. You know, we talked to our senators. We talked to our mayor.” – John Barns, 2015 |
Graphic from January 1980 Keystone newsletter
Graphic from May 1979 issue of Keystone newsletter
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Dignity members marching with PA Rural Gay Caucus members at the 1976 Philadelphia Gay Pride Parade
"By about 1990, I think we [MCC] had lost probably a third of our clergy because they were men, and they […] all died of AIDS.” – Rev. Mary Merriman, 2013 |
Jerry Brennan (1943 - 2001)Jerry Brennan was the founder of Dignity/Central PA, the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard of Harrisburg, and Gay Community Services. He was involved in LGBTQ+ activism beginning in the late 1960s, having been “radicalized even before Stonewall,” according to Steven Leshner. According to Steven, “he [Jerry] combined his religious faith and his sense of trying to correct injustice.” Richard Hause said “he wrote a lot of letters to Congress and legislatures, […] he was always up on the latest laws that were coming out. And if he opposed them, he wrote. Profusely. To Congress and the state legislature, and anyone else!”
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Jerry Brennan (right)
Jerry Brennan (Left)
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Jerry Brennan’s memorial card
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“Jerry was all about justice…He was always for the little guy, that’s the way he said it.”
– Richard Hause, 2017
– Richard Hause, 2017
Father Swady
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Reverend Wallace E. Sawdy was the chaplain of Dignity/Central PA for 20 years. He would often write a Reflections column in Keystone, Dignity’s newsletter. Many members of Dignity praised him and his ministry to the LGBTQ+ community. Thurman Grossnickle said “[he doesn’t] know what [he] would’ve done without that man.” In his oral history, John Barns recounted that Father Sawdy took in gay men who were dying of AIDs, saying he knew “how to love other people with no strings attached.”
“I’ve heard many a person say that Father Sawdy was a saint.” - John Barns, 2015 
From left to right, Thurman Grossnickle, Father Sawdy, and John Onofrey
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Father Sawdy’s Reflections column from the May 1979 issue of Keystone
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