Sunday mornings

Church was torturous.  I always had to wear uncomfortable clothes, try not to sleep,  try to avoid getting smacked in the head by my dad due to restlessness, giggling, fighting with my brother or getting caught playing tic tac toe on the program. I always yawned so much tears would stream down my face.  I still yawn uncontrollably when I have to sit through a church service.  Either that or the music, prayers, or sermon overwhelm me with emotion and I cry from, what?  Sadness?  Nostalgia?  Certainly not faith or the spirit of god.

We were Lutheran, and not the crazy Lutherans thank goddess.  A well-educated, liberal community, many of the congregants were professors at Carthage College where my mother and grandmother worked in the kitchen.  For a brief moment during the time period I was in Confirmation classes I wanted to become a pastor, but they were all men and I knew it was not allowed.  Also during that time I met Pastor Lee Meyerpeter, the youth minister. A dumpy, overweight man in his early thirties with a mustache and obsession with the Milwaukee Brewers, Pastor Lee made me think maybe I could  be religious.  He was tone deaf and was not able to intone even the most minimal prayers on key.  He smiled a lot and I often beat him in Hangman during youth group.  I figured if a person could be as goofy and normal as Pastor Lee and still be a man of God, maybe I could find something in faith that fit me too.  I kind of felt sorry for him compared to Pastor Park, the handsome head Pastor with a wife and three grown kids.  Pastor Park could even sing well. Pastor Lee was clearly less accomplished and needed to practice on the youth before he could be allowed to lead a real congregation.  He was kind and flexible with our Confirmation studies too, and didn't seem to take anything too seriously.  For this agnostic, he made faith seem possible.

I remember being jealous when Pastor Lee took one of the kids in my Confirmation class to see a movie.  A redheaded boy named Greg whose older sister had cancer in the past year or so. I figured Pastor Lee was putting some extra time and attention because maybe Greg was feeling sad or left out or something with his sister being sick.  Greg and I, Sue and Shelley were all thirteen and we made up the entire youth group.  When I told my parents I should be allowed to go see the movie Porky's because Greg had seen it, my mom and dad did actually go see the movie to check it out, judge for themselves if it earned the "R" rating.  Mom absolutely hated that movie, and told me that it completely misrepresented the fifties.  "No one was that obsessed with sex, Angela!"  I had heard the movie narrowly avoided receiving an "X" rating due to sex and of course that was what made it so attractive to me.  "But Greg went to see it, I mean it couldn't be THAT bad after all, Pastor Lee took him!"  They didn't budge. If they thought it was strange that Pastor Lee took a thirteen year old boy to see Porky's, they did not mention it to me.

I was shocked when my parents told me a few months later Pastor Lee had been fired.  "What? WHY??" I demanded.  I was told he had to move on because "he's gay" my mother whispered to me.  He was fired because he is gay?  That is SO UNFAIR!  What does that matter?  He was an excellent youth pastor.  He paid attention to us, told goofy jokes, played pool with us, I beat him in Hangman.  He was awesome.  And is being gay so dangerous?  Then I heard it whispered that he was gay with Greg, the thirteen year old.  To be honest, the implication of that completely passed right over my head.  All I felt was outrage that Pastor Lee was unfairly treated because of his completely benign homosexuality.  It was wrong. It was threatening.  What did that mean for me?

After Pastor Lee was so unfairly treated in my eyes when I was at an age of questioning who I am, my beliefs and values, I saw the church and my parents as being hopelessly hypocritical.  I saw the Christian value of love and forgiveness being swept away in homophobia and it pushed me further from a faith that was on thin ice as it was.  I was no longer interested in living a life with god if that is how kind, sweet, funny people were treated just for being gay.  I started fighting with my dad about going to church.  I purposely wore clothes I knew he would not allow.  "Does god care what we wear?  I mean, REALLY, dad!"  I argued in the church service about hypocrisy, and got pinched and quietly hit and made to walk home after the service in shame. Other congregants driving by stared at me, wondering why I had to walk home.  Finally I found a solution when I was fourteen:  I got a job that required me to work on Sunday mornings.  My dad could not argue with me about that.  Work always wins.

Twenty years later I was doing sex offender treatment and I was filling in for my coworker's group.  He told me there was a new guy, he needed to do his disclosure statement.  His offense was possession of child pornography, a misdemeanor, and he didn't have to register but Joe (my coworker) knew there were victims that he hadn't gotten caught for.  The porn was of young boys.  There would be a polygraph scheduled to get the scope of his history as soon as possible. His name is Lee Meyerpeter.  "Pastor Lee?  Pastor Lee is in your group?  Holy fuck.  There can only be one Lee Meyerpeter.  Yes, I would love to hear his disclosure statement!"  As Joe and I talked about it, it was clear this guy had been my youth pastor and I was extremely emotional about him and what happened to Greg.  I suddenly saw all the nice things he did as grooming me, not to be a victim of his sexual deviance, but to be a person who would say, "No way, not him.  He is a good guy" and offer him some protection from his crimes.  Lee had been removed from our congregation and moved to another congregation in Milwaukee.  He had moved around several times and likely had many, many victims but he was only convicted of one and he was not a registered sex offender. He still had protection from wealthy friends and church officials.  Joe didn't let me run that group, and we made sure I didn't run into Pastor Lee while he was getting treatment in our office.  I think Joe moved him to the Burlington office.  I think I may have hit him if I saw him.

Finding out that the church failed Greg (and Lee) in so many more ways than I thought shattered any goodwill I had toward religion.  Attending church as an adult is something I've done always with half a heart of fear, half of hope.  It always brings up strong emotions in me, and that alone is enough to keep me out of church.

Lee A. Meyerpeter

beware