Hardy found herself caught in a crossfire between Greater Bethel's pastor, Rev. John F. White, and its former openly gay minister, Tommie Watkins, that has drained her zeal and made her reconsider her place.
Until recently Hardy served as executive director of Greater Bethel's AIDS Ministry, the first church-based effort in Miami to confront AIDS in the black community. Hardy single-handedly secured funding and oversaw a variety of AIDS programs, including counseling services, referrals, and housing. She managed a staff of seven and a $400,000 budget.
That was the easy part. The ministerial maverick's hard work lay in persuading community leaders and black pastors, many of whom view AIDS as God's wrath against gays and drug addicts, to open their minds and deal with the disease realistically and effectively.
In June of last year, Hardy hired Tommie Watkins to be the program director of the AIDS Ministry. A month earlier she and Watkins had established a twice-monthly religious service for gays and lesbians and their families that they called the Ministry of Reconciliation. It was the first service of its kind among more than 1000 AME Church congregations worldwide.
Reverend White, once a supporter of the project, closed the fledgling ministry in May and fired Watkins in August. He also demoted Hardy, Watkins's mentor and ally, from her position as executive director of the AIDS Ministry, leaving her dejected. "It's difficult, but [leaving Greater Bethel] is a reality I must face," Hardy says. "I don't need to be here to be diminished or feel diminished. I grew this ministry. I feel that it's mine."
If Hardy is feeling diminished, Tommie Watkins is feeling eliminated, a dramatic reversal of the warm welcome he says he received from Reverend White when he began volunteering at the church almost two years ago. Watkins had been teaching math at the Catholic Christopher Columbus High School and volunteering at Hardy's AIDS Ministry on a part-time basis. When school administrators learned of his homosexuality and his work at Greater Bethel, they refused to renew his teaching contract. (Watkins filed a complaint against Columbus High under Miami-Dade County's Human Rights Ordinance only to discover that religious institutions are exempt from the law.) Watkins joined Greater Bethel's AIDS Ministry full-time soon after.
According to Watkins, Reverend White not only welcomed him to Greater Bethel, he allowed the openly gay young man to minister from the pulpit during Sunday services and supported his efforts to seek formal ordination from the church. To the 26-year-old Watkins, it was a dream come true. "It was remarkably affirming," he recalls. "I always thought there had to be a church where I could go and be accepted. After coming out and standing for what I believe is right, finding Greater Bethel was to me God's confirmation of my actions, and His telling me this is the place where I could minister and use all my talents. I could be Tommie -- all of me -- and help people as I am. That's all I ever wanted to do."
But the honeymoon did not last. Watkins's presence bothered many of the elders in the upper tiers of the AME Church throughout Florida. The AME Board of Examiners, a regional cadre of elders, last year rejected without comment his bid for ordination despite his having completed the required coursework to become a deacon.
Watkins sought from AME elders an explanation for his rejection. Reverend White, he says, initially encouraged those efforts. But the reverend's support abruptly ended this past May. During a meeting in White's office, Watkins admits he raised his voice as he argued that he deserved an answer from the church hierarchy.
That's when Marilyn Hardy stepped into White's office. "I walked in and said, “Tommie, be quiet. You're getting ready to cut your own throat,'" Hardy recounts. "That's when [Reverend White] said, “Yes, you are cutting your throat. As a matter of fact, I'm cutting the Ministry [of Reconciliation] right now.'" And with that White killed the unique church service. He also eliminated Watkins's $33,000 position with the AIDS Ministry after Hardy refused to fire him.
Greater Bethel Church officials who spoke anonymously for this article say Reverend White was concerned that Watkins was too outspoken and that he may have been using the church to advance himself as a gay leader. "The Ministry of Reconciliation became about one particular person, not about the community," a church elder contends. "We were being used."
But Watkins and Hardy believe White's rebuke arises from the pastor's quest to be named an AME bishop. "I don't know what to make of it except I believe it's the politics of the church," Hardy says. "In order for Reverend White to be in the good graces of the hierarchy of the church, he needs to acquiesce to their way of thinking. So while he may not mind us having a gay ministry, he has decided that because the bishops have made the ruling that there is no ordination of openly gay people in the church, he would cut our program."
White did not respond to 22 faxed questions about the recent changes. "Your questions would require a considerable amount of time I am currently not in a position to invest," he wrote in a letter, adding that Greater Bethel's outreach services for people with AIDS and HIV would continue. "[The] mission and vision have not changed," he stated, "and the program is moving forward as directed by the organizational structure of the church."
In the same letter he asserted that the Ministry of Reconciliation was never part of his church's AIDS programs. Watkins and Hardy disagree, saying the two programs were entwined in the grant proposals. "We included language about sexuality in all the grants as part of the validity of the program," Watkins notes.
Since the Ministry of Reconciliation was cut, its 50 regular members have been meeting at Hardy's two-bedroom condominium in the Park West neighborhood. But the arrangements are temporary. Hardy and her husband are planning to move north to Port St. Lucie. Watkins will remain in Miami and will likely take a position with the Episcopal AIDS Ministry at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral downtown.
Hardy leaves the 105-year-old Greater Bethel at the end of September in search of a place to worship in a church that is led by a minister who embraces all people. "I need to know that the person leading the church I go to is a true messenger of God," she says. "If I can't find that, then I need to do it for myself. If I have to lead a church, then I'll lead a church -- even if that church is just me and my husband."
As for Watkins, he's consulting with a lawyer. At press time he has no plans to sue. "[Reverend White] uses the talent of the staff, and when he no longer benefits from you he shoves you out the door," Watkins vents. "It takes a strong person to really address these issues. All [Reverend White] is doing is showing how shifty people can be in the church."
