Profile from the Raleigh News & Observer

A wonderful friend convinced the reporter to do this profile of me. I am grateful beyond words to my friend.

On a mission for equality
BY SARAH RUBENOFF

Jack McKinney says he's always had a heart for the "outcasts of society."

In February, McKinney, 45, former pastor at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, opened McKinney Counseling and Consulting, where one of the specialties is gender identity disorders.

"I have been fortunate to know and counsel hundreds of individuals who would be considered 'outcasts' for one reason or another," McKinney said. "What I have learned from these people is an inspiration. Justice for all is not just a theory."

McKinney knew early in life that promoting the rights of the gay and lesbian community was to be part of his calling. When one of McKinney's closest high school friends publically came out, McKinney had a decision to make.

"I could continue to believe the party line about how awful gay people were, or I could believe my own experience revealed by my close friend," McKinney said. "I chose to believe my experience. The result has been the amazing privilege of befriending and counseling hundreds of LGBT people who are as wonderful as my childhood friend."

McKinney began his journey at Pullen in 1998 when a friend submitted his name to Pullen's search committee. After landing his dream job, McKinney set out to promote the rights of the LGBT community inside and outside the church.

After 18 months at Pullen, McKinney made his first big decision as pastor and asked the congregation to promote Nancy Petty, who is a lesbian, from associate pastor to co-pastor. "The decision to share power with me was really a testament to his character," Petty said. "It demonstrated his commitment to what's fair, what's right and what is equal."

Said McKinney, "The fact that Nancy is a lesbian and leading a major congregation in a Southern city says a lot about Pullen's inclusive nature."

McKinney continued to further his cause by joining with other religious leaders and activists in the Triangle to form the North Carolina Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality in 2004.

The organization, dedicated to achieving marriage equality for same-sex couples, met with religious leaders and asked them to sign statements promoting the cause and also held a rally at the General Assembly to publicize the movement.

Recently, the NCRC4ME gave its remaining funds to Equality North Carolina, the leading advocacy organization in the state for LGBT rights and an organization in which McKinney also is active.

McKinney has run into criticism from the church and community, in the form of derogatory letters and angry phone calls, but more often than not he and his colleagues receive gratitude for their work, McKinney said.

"I also befriended a couple of people who initially sent me critical letters; when I responded they seemed surprised I was willing to talk to them and we started a much more civil exchange after that," he said.

After making extensive progress for the LGBT community and becoming a beloved fixture at Pullen, McKinney made the decision to start the next chapter of his life.v"I told the church I didn't want to become a mediocre minister, and I feared I was headed in that direction," McKinney said. "Yet, the one part of my job I still had great passion for was counseling."

McKinney had previously partnered with Kimball Sargent, a nurse psychotherapist and owner of Diverse Solutions, a local business that specializes in transgender therapy.

"I was looking for someone to help my clients in a spiritual way. Jack did just this," Sargent said. "He was so helpful and empathetic to my clients, and I was not surprised when he started his own business."

More than half McKinney's clients are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and he also provides couples counseling for both heterosexual and gay couples, as well as pastoral consulting services for clergy and congregations.

McKinney said he does not find it hard to balance spirituality and professionalism in his counseling services. "There is a misconception that pastoral counseling must involve some religious angle," McKinney said. "Actually, it is just talk therapy with a therapist who is also comfortable talking about faith or spiritual matters if the client wants to do so."

McKinney remembers one of his most powerful memories from his professional life as presiding over a same-sex covenant ceremony at Pullen.

"Both the fathers were well into their senior adult years and had some anxieties about being part of a gay wedding," McKinney said. After the ceremony, the fathers, who served at best men in the service, said they thought the service was beautiful.

"After that day," McKinney said, "I never assumed people could not change their minds about accepting gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people."

Ignoring Conventional Wisdom

This is my column for the August edition of The Triangle. To see the rest of the publication, check it out at http://www.trianglelgbt.com/pdfs/webaugust.pdf

When I think about Nancy Petty, my good friend and pastor, one question comes to mind. How did she get to this place in her life? How does a lesbian become the senior minister of one of the most prominent Baptist churches in a southern state? To appreciate the answer you need to know the whole story.

Nancy grew up in Shelby, west of Charlotte, not exactly the progressive center of North Carolina. Her family was active in a small Baptist church outside of town. Tagging along with her father, who was an active lay leader in the congregation, Nancy was in church every chance she got. To this day if she hears an old hymn Nancy will break into song as though she has been transported back to her childhood church.

Nancy went to college at Gardner Webb University, a Baptist school in Shelby, and then to seminary at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. She was preparing for ministry in a tradition that had little room for women ministers. To make things even more challenging, Nancy’s understanding of her sexuality clarified in her college and graduate school days. So, she was a good Baptist girl from a traditional Baptist family who happened to be gay and wanted to be a pastor. Raise your hand if you sense a problem on the horizon.

This is the point in the story when most people would have followed the path of conventional wisdom and made a choice. Nancy could have hidden her sexuality so that her career as a minister might still have some chance of taking off in the Baptist world; she could have left her beloved Baptist roots to seek ordination in one of the few religious traditions accepting of gay ministers; or she could have abandoned her calling and pursued a life outside of the church. From an outsider’s perspective these were the only realistic options open to her and each one meant giving up something critical to her soul.

Nancy refused to abide by the choices presented to her by conventional wisdom. For almost twenty years she has served as an openly gay minister at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh. She has had different titles during that time: Minister of Education, Associate Pastor, Co-Pastor (a title I was proud to share with her for eight years), and now Pastor. She suffered the slings and arrows of denunciation from inside the Baptist world, and she overcame many doubters in her own church family. In the end, as the kids say, she outlasted the haters.

Of course none of us make it in life without much support along the way. Nancy would be the first to name all of the mentors, colleagues, and friends who helped her get to this point in her career. Even so, the key ingredient in Nancy’s story is her determination to live as authentically as possible. Her refusal to play by the rules handed to her by society, the church, and other traditional powers has resulted in one of the most interesting biographies of any minister I know.

Conventional wisdom is a subtle force that lulls us into faulty assumptions. It leads us to believe that the way things are must be the way they will always be. Conventional wisdom suggests that how most people see the world reflects the only acceptable truth about the world. More insidiously, conventional wisdom provides cover for those in power to deny the powerless access to basic rights and opportunities.

Liberation means throwing off the shackles of conventional wisdom and refusing to accept the paltry choices it sets before us. Of course it takes courage to live a truth others find uncomfortable or upsetting. It also takes patience and determination to continue on the narrow path that doesn’t immediately lead to success. However, we have a word for those people in any movement or culture who go against the grain and live honestly in the face of conventional wisdom’s rebuke. We call them heroes.

The heroes and heroines who have changed their world, either in big or small ways, all started from the same point: they were dissatisfied with the way things were and took a risk to make a change. For many of those people, that risk was simply being themselves in an open and proud fashion. And the amazing thing is that over time conventional wisdom succumbs to the power of the truth lived by such courageous souls.

Nancy Petty is a short woman with a huge heart whose determination to be herself is changing the church and our community for the better. Let us give thanks for such heroes in our midst.