Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth Interview with Ruth Schmidt, who is a Pastor and Trailblazing LGBTQ+ Clergy.
Today’s show deals with the issue of religious institutions discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community. Our guest, Pastor Ruth Schmidt, was a senior director at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, until she was fired for refusing to sign the school’s mandatory statement of faith, which prohibits affirmation of same-sex marriage.
When she first entered Fuller as a student in 2016, she did sign the statement of faith. And she signed it again in 2022, this time as an employee, pursuant to Fuller’s policy of requiring senior staff members to sign the statement annually. I should point out that there are court rulings throughout the United States, permitting discrimination by religious institutions against gay students and employees, and this was most recently seen in October 2020, when the court affirmed the Fuller Seminary’s right to expel 2 students for being in same-sex marriages.
Getting back to Pastor Ruth Schmidt, when she was required in 2023 to re-sign the statement, she realized that it would be wrong for her to do that, given her imminent ordination into the United Church of Christ, which DOES accept marriage for same-sex couples. She ALSO came to the realization that it was ethically wrong and hypocritical for the Fuller Theological Seminary, which prides itself in being multi-denominational, to make money from denominations that affirm same-sex marriage, but at the same time, compel its students and employees to sign a homophobic statement of faith, and to dismiss those who refuse to do so.
As a result of our guest being fired, and the groundswell of support she received, not only from students and faculty at Fuller, but from the community at large and the media, the Board of Trustees at the Fuller Theological Seminary created a task force to reconsider its policies relating to human sexuality, and the school has now proposed new sexuality standards for the students, but NOT for staff and faculty.
So, there is still much work to be done.
Harvey Brownstone is a retired judge of the Ontario Court of Justice and was the first openly gay judge in Canada. He is also the bestselling author of “Tug of War: A Judge’s Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles and the Bitter Realities of Family Court” and hosted “Family Matters with Justice Harvey Brownstone,” a television talk show on matters involving the family justice system.
After a distinguished legal career, Harvey was appointed a judge at the age of 38 in 1995. He has presided in family and criminal courts. He has been a trailblazer in several ways. He was the first openly gay judge in Canada. He was the first sitting judge in the world to write a national best seller and to host a TV talk show.
Harvey has been a role model and icon in the LGBTQ community. When same-sex marriage was legalized in Canada in 2003, he was the only judge to make himself publicly available to officiate at weddings for lesbian and gay couples travelling to Toronto from all over the world to get married. In 2007, he officiated at the wedding of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, the American couple whose marriage triggered the 2013 United States Supreme Court decision overturning the definition of “spouse” in the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
In February 2021, Harvey launched his online talk show “Harvey Brownstone Interviews” on his own YouTube channel. He saw this as an interesting hobby. Within several months, the show attracted hundreds of thousands – and then eventually, millions – of viewers. Because of the overwhelming success of the show, Harvey decided to retire from the judiciary on December 31, 2021 after having presided as a full-time judge for 26 1/2 years. Free from the constraints imposed upon judges regarding the expression of opinions and the endorsement of private enterprise, Harvey now happily devotes his full-time attention to hosting “Harvey Brownstone Interviews” as a regular member of the public – albeit one with a rather illustrious and unique career history.
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