On May 19, 2024, on the Feast of Pentecost, the Reverend Lisa Hunt retired and bid farewell to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (SSEC), where she had served as rector since 2006. SSEC is a congregation with a history of service to the Montrose LGBTQ+ community that predates Hunt’s tenure, but she saw some significant changes in both church and the larger culture with regard to queer acceptance. I sat down with her to talk about her work in our community.
Leaving Tennessee for Texas
Lisa Hunt came to Houston from a congregation in Nashville, Tennessee with a few similarities to SSEC. It was a progressive, welcoming parish but the diocese was overseen by a bishop who was staunchly against full participation of queer folk.
In 2003, when Gene Robinson was elected as the Bishop of New Hampshire, he was the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. Hunt was in the center of the controversy on the local level.
“I had been able to be an advocate for the LGBTQ community in the Diocese of Tennessee,” she says, “and also an organizer to prevent the diocese from leaving the Episcopal Church.”
There was a real possibility that the bishop would lead the diocese into the more conservative Anglican Church in North America. Hunt was part of an organized resistance to that possibility. “I think our opposition was surprising in what seemed like such a conservative place, that there was this substratum of justice and progressive thinking around [Robinson’s consecration as bishop].”
The work took a toll on Hunt, however, and left her feeling bruised and beaten. When she was presented with the opportunity at St. Stephen’s, she hesitated but eventually said yes.
“Texas was not as riven,” she says. “Don Wimberley was the bishop at the time and he was very committed to keeping everybody in the tent. He was not committed to addressing the issue in any way, but he wasn’t going to leave the Episcopal Church and he wasn’t going to let anybody else take congregations out of the Episcopal Church in any big number.”
SSEC had long been an advocate and support for the Montrose LGBTQ community, particularly during the AIDS crisis when gay men were dying without family or community around them. Additionally, Helen Havens, the previous rector at St. Stephens, was the first woman rector in the state of Texas, putting SSEC at the forward edge of women in leadership in the diocese. When Hunt was going through the interview process, she felt her ability to continue the legacies in both these areas were what made her the successful candidate as Havens’ successor.
High Points and Lows
In 2012, as many states were approving marriage between people of the same gender, the Episcopal Church came under pressure to offer a liturgy that would recognize these legal unions. A liturgy called “Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant” was approved by the General Convention (the national governing body of the Episcopal Church). The service text avoided “marriage” language to appease anti-marriage equality folks but also so that it might be used in states, like Texas, where same-sex marriage was not yet legal. In the Diocese of Texas, two congregations were asked to begin preparation to use this liturgy: St. David’s in Austin and St. Stephen’s in Houston.
SSEC set up study groups to investigate what it really meant to be married. “I think that studying what it meant to be married was really important at St. Stephen’s,” Hunt says. “I remember when we did the pre-covenant workshops, we had to cover all the legal documents that gay couples would need to have in place, which were five different documents, when a certificate of marriage would create that legal structure for people. We talked about the spiritual meaning of doing this, we talked about the psychological meaning of doing this, and what made for longevity.” Hunt goes on to acknowledge some points that remain under discussion. “I think the understanding we were under then, and still are I would say, is that monogamy would be the norm for these covenants. I think polygamy and polyamory are creating new questions for the church.”
SSEC used the “Witnessing and Blessing” liturgy for the first time in the spring of 2013, two years before the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges made marriage equality the law of the land.
While June 2015 brought much celebration at the Obergefell decision, that November was a reality check for Houston’s queer community. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) failed at the ballot box. “I think the defeat of HERO was deeply troubling and I think it says a lot about the city and where we are,” Hunt says. “We talk about diversity and acceptance but that was a fundamental right, legally and civilly, that did not get issued. I think that is undone work for Houston.”
Within the Diocese of Texas, 2016 saw a minor battle around Canon 43, a church law that, among other things, defined marriage as between a man and a woman. It was often cited as the reason to not ordain priests in same-sex relationships. The diocese’s Annual Council, held in February of that year, repealed that canon, opening the door for ordaining partnered queer clergy. Hunt explains the importance of repealing Canon 43 this way: “Rhetoric and law, whether it’s ecclesiastical [church] law or civil law, it sends messages about who is fully human, who is fully a citizen, who is fully a part of the community.”
Another big change Hunt notes is in the annual Pride observances. “When I first came to St Stephen’s, the Pride Parade was in Montrose and Montrose was seen, geographically, as the heart of the gay community. There was a sense of pride and identity in that, that sense of place, that sense of history, that sense of connection,” she remembers. “I think the move to downtown was about logistics as well as legitimacy, but I wonder if that move cost in terms of identity and trust.”
Post Retirement
Hunt was engaged in non-church activities in the Montrose area, too. She had served on the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone board for Montrose until just recently when Mayor John Whitmire replaced her and three other members. Hunt had intended to carry on with that work but this will not keep her from being involved in the neighborhood she served for eighteen years. She mentions HIV infection rates in Houston, a desire for easy access to library services for people of all walks of life in Montrose, and the continuing struggles with infrastructure and fiscal responsibility in the City of Houston as being continuing concerns for her. “There is a tremendous need for affordable housing in the city of Houston and I’ve learned a lot from serving on the TIRZ board in this regard,” she says. “I plan to put this learning to use.”
So, despite not having the TIRZ board as her vehicle for addressing these concerns, she concludes, “I will continue to work to make Houston a better city in other ways, in other places.”
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