At a recent 50th anniversary celebration of the first conference held on Homosexuality and Christianity, I was glad for the interest and appreciation of younger people for stories from my past, and that of Sister Jeannine Gramick.

Jeannine and I met at the first conference on Homosexuality and the Catholic Church. She was a School Sister of Notre Dame, 33, and the only woman at the gathering. I was 26 and still a reporter, copyeditor, and columnist for “The Michigan Catholic.”

Upon returning to Detroit, I wrote the column “Gay or Straight, Love is the Goal.” I lost my column and my job, but landed on my feet and began educating others on LGBTQ issues.

In the few months following our return home, Jeannine flew to Detroit three times, once to appear with me on the nationally televised “Lou Gordon Show,” and once to give witness at the Mass of Solidarity held for me when the newspaper dropped my column. On that visit, she also picketed the chancery on my behalf. Jeannine also came to my home and that of Dignity/Detroit, the Pink Palace, to dialogue with two theologians who were calling into question the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. After consultation with Dignity, New Ways, and the Salvatorian Gay Ministry Task Force, they wrote “Human Sexuality - New Directions in Catholic Thought,” published by the Catholic Theological Society of America. In it, they said gay love could be life-giving. It was banned by Rome.

Jeannine founded New Ways Ministry with Fr. Bob Nugent. Their focus was on educating the parents of LGBTQ people, theologians, priests, and bishops. They reprinted articles that challenged Church teaching and held retreats and national conferences on the subject of being gay and Catholic. I was the keynote speaker at their first conference.

Pope Benedict XVI forbid any Catholic facility from allowing Jeannine and Bob to hold gatherings of parents. He also forced the School Sisters of Notre Dame to give Jeannine an ultimatum that she either quit New Ways and her ministry to LGBTQ people and their families or leave the order. She chose the second option and was embraced by the Sisters of Loretto.

Pope Francis, on the other hand, sent Jeannine a letter praising her work, and recently met with her for an hour in the Vatican.

At the 50th anniversary of the first conference, Jeannine, Bill Baird and I were on a panel to speak about our time at the 1974 gathering, and our subsequent work. The dance picture is at the University of Dayton, where there was a ribbon cutting of a new lounge for LGBTQ students created by Bill and his deceased husband, John F. Kennedy. The student in charge of the center is transgender. The University of Dayton, run by the Marianist order, was the first Catholic University to invite me in to speak in the early 1980s.

Here you see an 82-year-old nun and a 76-year-old gay man doing the Bump.