Lee Hart Merrick

Julian Rush-facing the Music: a Gay Methodist Minister's Story Lee Hart Merrick

Julian Rush is a United Methodist minister who served churches in Dallas, Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs for 17 years until his suppressed homosexual orientation surfaced. With Julian's acknowledgement of his sexuality, in the early '80s, First United Methodist Church of Boulder decided he was no longer suitable to minister to the congregation and chose to stop paying his salary. Julian's situation with the Boulder church and United Methodism became widely publicized as the denomination continued to grapple with the issue of homosexuality. This is Julian's own record of his struggles with being unacknowledged as a gay child, his religion, family and community-both before and after the discovery of his orientation-and the reaction of those his life has touched. These include persons who are non-gay but supportive, gays and lesbians who are out, non-supportive persons, and an outpouring of pain and suffering from those closeted people who could not reveal themselves. Through a tortuous journey, Julian continues to discover his niche in communities that can benefit from his ministry. He last served as Executive Director for the Colorado AIDS Project as an appointed United Methodist minister. This is the story of how it all began.