Boston Pride Chooses Peter Gomes as Honorary Marshal

More than 2,000 voted to choose the late Rev. Peter Gomes as an honorary marshal for this year's Boston Pride. And it's not very hard to see why the Pride committee chose him.

The minister was open about his sexuality since he came out in 1991. He strived to prove equality was a fundamental Christian right. And Gomes became a beacon of hope for people who wanted to practice their faith without feeling guilty about their sexuality.

He passed away on Feb. 28 after he suffered a brain aneurysm and a heart attack. Gomes was 68.

Gomes Was A "Living Symbol of Courage and Conviction"
Gomes was a professor and reverend at the Harvard Divinity School, cementing his status as an elder statesman of sorts for LGBT Bostonians. In 1996, he wrote published a book that discussed the Bible and how it should be used for the greater good, not to prove wrongdoing. It became a national best-seller and stayed on the list for years.

"In 1991 Gomes came out of the closet as a pre-emptive strike against a rabidly conservative Christian student group on campus whose magazine hurled homophobic diatribes against us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students that also wanted to remove Gomes from his position as the University minister," said the Rev. Irene Monroe, Gomes' head teaching fellow at the Harvard Divinity School and a close personal friend.

"Peter Gomes served Harvard with unparalleled dedication, wisdom, and creativity for more than four decades," said Harvard President Drew Faust in a statement shortly after Gomes' death. "He was an original, a teacher in the fullest sense - a scholar, a mentor, one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and conviction."

The National Black Justice Coalition also fondly remembered Gomes .

"Reverend Gomes will be missed by all who were touched by his brilliance and courage," it wrote on its Web site. "His words will continue to dance and inspire theologians seeking to create Christian theology that is affirmative and inclusive of LGBT people."

By coming out, Gomes proved he didn't have to hide his identity to be a prominent member of the Harvard community. While some shunned him for his announcement, others embraced the idea of a "gay minister" with open arms, according to a "New York Times" article. Gomes, however, hated the moniker.

In fact, Gomes hated all labels: he was a gay African American man who held conservative political beliefs and preached Christianity. None of these ideologies takes away or adds to the fact that Gomes was a person with a good heart.

"I'm always seen as a black man and now I'm seen as a black gay man," Gomes once told the "Boston Herald". "If you throw the other factors in there that make me peculiar and interesting - the Yankee part, the Republican part, the Harvard type - all that stuff confuses people who have to have a single stereotypical lens in order to assure themselves they have a grasp on reality."

The effect Gomes had on the LGBT community can still be seen today. It's in the teenagers who find the strength to come out to their family and friends. It's at church during peace offerings. And it will certainly be seen this week during Boston Pride.

There are still places, however, that aren't as accepting as one might think, given Gomes presence in the community.

"Research has showed that since 2008, African-American Christian are less likely than other Protestant groups to believe that LGBTQ people should have equal rights," stated Monroe. "And since hot-button issues like gay adoption and marriage equality have become more prominent, support for LGBTQ rights among African-American Protestants has dipped as low as 40 percent."

She stressed these anti-gay sentiments in black churches remain just as strong in the North as they are in the South.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.