Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight has spent her career in ministry. She is a suffragan bishop (Assistant Bishop) in the Diocese of Los Angeles in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She is the first open lesbian to be consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Church. Today's Out Spotlight is Mary Douglas Glasspool.

Mary Douglas Glasspool was born February 23, 1954 in Staten Island, New York, to Douglas Murray Glasspool and Anne Dickinson, while her father was the Rector of St. Simon's Episcopal Church and Vicar of All Saints' Church in New York City. That same year the family moved to Goshen, New York, where her father an ordained Episcopal priest served as Rector of St. James’ Church until his death in 1989.

The future priest was the child of a priest. Her father was the Rector of St. Simon's Episcopal Church and Vicar of All Saints' Church in New York City when she was born on February 23, 1954. Two months later he was appointed Rector at St. James' Church in Goshen, New York and continued to serve there until his death in 1989.

She enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1972 where she excelled academically and graduated magna cum laude with honors in music in 1976. She also received the college's prestigious Hofstader Prize, awarded annually to recognize the outstanding woman in the graduating class.

While at Dickinson, she grapple with two important personal questions that would shape her future, her sexual orientation and the work she would devote her life.

At the time, the Episcopal church was not as welcoming to gays and lesbians, and the ordination of women, gay or straight, was still very controversial in the church.

Glasspool recognized she was a lesbian and acknowledge her desire to enter the family business of the priesthood.

She informed her father of her determination to become a priest.
The Reverend Douglas Glasspool was conservative, opposing to the ordination of women and wouldn't even let girls serve as acolytes at his church, but he gave his daughter his blessing to pursue her calling.

"I was an exception to his rules, not an example of the rule itself. That's how he was able to live with it. In his own gracious way, he sort of separated out public and private," stated Glasspool to Lisa Miller of Newsweek, adding, "I think he honestly was proud of me on a personal level and wanted to support me but couldn't break out of the kind of characteristics he himself promoted as someone who upheld the Tradition."

She entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1976 to study for the ministry and was ordained a deacon in June 1981 and a priest in March 1982.

While still in the seminary, she attended the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and signed up to be one of the people giving short presentations before the subcommittee on resolutions regarding sexuality, including whether there should be barriers to the ordination of homosexuals.

She made the point that when talking about human sexuality, one was not talking about "issues" but about people. She concluded her remarks by saying, "I trust that God's love at this Convention will transcend the issues and address the people--all of us--in our wholeness. I trust and pray that that same love will prevent any of us from condemning others--particularly, in this case, homosexuals--in our human, and full, and loving wholeness."

As she sat down after her testimony, she was approached by her Bishop, the legendary Paul Moore, who was later revealed to have been bisexual and who became the first Episcopal Bishop to ordain an openly lesbian priest. He gave her a big hug and told her, "Now that you've come out to 1,500 people, don't you think it's about time to tell your parents?"

In 1981, she became the assistant to the rector at St. Paul’s Church in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, where she served until 1984. She went on to be the rector of St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Church in Boston from 1984 to 1992, then the rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Annapolis, MD from 1992 to 2001.

During her years in Boston, Glasspool became acquainted with another woman priest, Barbara Harris, whom she nominated for Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts in 1988. Harris was the first woman elected bishop, a decision that caused considerable controversy.

Glasspool was on the committee in charge of arranging security for Harris's consecration. Precautions included outfitting Harris with a bullet-proof vest to wear under ecclesiastical robes at the ceremony, the same measure that would be taken at the installation of V. Gene Robison, the first openly gay man to become a bishop, in 2003.

While working in Boston, Glasspool also met her life-partner, Becki Sander, who was studying for advanced degrees in both theology and social work. The couple has been in a committed relationship since 1988.

Glasspool left Boston to become the Rector of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, Maryland in 1992. The suburban parish was considerably larger and better funded than the one she served in Massachusetts.

In the 1990s the was tension within the Episcopal church on their stance on homosexuality. Glasspool did not duck specific questions about her own sexual orientation, but the members of her fairly conservative congregation generally refrained from asking any, and so her partner Sander "was invisible as far as the parish was concerned," she said.

In 2001 Glasspool was chosen to be Canon to the Bishops of the Diocese of Maryland, and with the new post she took on a wider range of responsibilities. "In my heart, I believe there is a significant part of me that is and always will be a parish priest," she stated, but she rose to the challenge of serving the entire diocese through preaching and teaching, attending to the needs and concerns of clergy, organizing retreats, and working on planning and development, among other duties.

Because of the breadth and diversity of her experiences in that position, Glasspool was a strong candidate when the Diocese of Los Angeles sought to elect two Bishops Suffragan in 2009.

Glasspool was elected a bishop suffragan on December 4, 2009, on the seventh ballot at the 115th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in Riverside, California. On March 17, 2010, the Presiding Bishop’s Office certified that her election had received the necessary consents and she was consecrated on May 15, 2010, in Long Beach, California. The ceremony was briefly halted when a man and a young boy began shouting homophobic remarks, but the congregation rallied in support of Glasspool and, by extension, of other GLBT members of the church.

She is the 17th woman and the first openly gay woman elected to bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Her election gained worldwide attention as part of the ongoing debate about gay bishops in the Anglican Church.