Last Updated on November 26, 2023 by Kittredge Cherry
Louie Crew Clay was a longtime LGBTQ church activist who founded of the Episcopal LGBTQ group Integrity in 1974. He died on Nov. 27, 2019 at age 82, peacefully at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, with his husband by his side, a few days after suffering a stroke. As he battled anti-LGBTQ discrimination for decades, his favorite phrase was “Joy anyway!”
More than 1,000 people and events are included on the “Today in LGBTQ History” calendar compiled by Louie Crew Clay. His complete original calendar list — including witty comments in his unique deadpan style — was added to the Q Spirit website in May 2021.
Now some call him “Saint Louie of Alabama.” An icon of him with a halo was added here on the first anniversary of his death. It was created by Tobias Haller, an iconographer, author, composer, and retired vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx, still assisting at a parish in Baltimore, Maryland. Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints.
Erman Louie Clay (né Erman Louie Crew, Jr.) was born Dec. 9, 1936, in Anniston, Alabama. He was professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University. He is best known for his long and successful campaign for LGBTQ equality in the church. After almost 40 years together, he married Ernest Clay in 2013 and assumed his husband’s last name.
His accomplishments include serving on the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1976-78. He was elected to serve on the Episcopal Church’s 38-member executive council from 2000 to 2006. He inspired LGBTQ people of faith with a favorite phrase that he repeated so often that it became like a mantra: “Joy anyway!”
Clay was way ahead of his time in many ways — in 1974, when he founded Integrity USA, the national Episcopal LGBTQ organization. And in 1980, when he imagined the possibility of a queer Christ in a poem that asks, “Christ, what did you feel when your beloved John lay across your lap?”
Much of Clay’s best and most influential writing is gathered together in “Letters from Samaria: The Prose and Poetry of Louie Crew Clay.” It includes work written from 1974 until its publication in 2015. The book’s often surprising brave, witty, matter-of-fact self-disclosure has been described as “very much like chatting with Louie.”
Integrity grew to 58 local chapters with about 2,000 active members by 2011. It was hugely influential in transforming the church to achieve the Integrity goal of full LGBTQ participation. Mission accomplished, Integrity went into decline and dissolved as a non-profit corporation in January 2022, according to an Episcopal News Service report.
Louie Crew Clay entered eternal life on the anniversary of the assassination of another LGBTQ-rights activist, Harvey Milk. The date will link these two LGBTQ saints for eternity. They can be considered Advent saints because the timing of their deaths coincides with the start of the liturgical season of Advent, a time to prepare for God’s arrival in the world. When I added Louie to the alphabetical list of names in my LGBTQ Saints series, he took an honored place right after gay Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd.
The announcement of his passing from Elizabeth Kaeton concluded:
Even as we make our way to the grave, our song is Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Or, as our Louie would say, “Joy Anyway!”
A personal memory of Louie Clay
My first and most vivid memory of Louie was in 1992, when the National Council of Churches voted to deny observer status to the LGBTQ-affirming denomination Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). I was there as MCC ecumenical staff as during the terrible vote. I cannot put into words how stressful and upsetting it was for me as a naive young lesbian minister and for all the LGBTQ representatives from every denomination. It was particularly sickening when a closeted gay Episcopalian voted against us. We felt alone and rejected.
One ray of hope came in the form of a fax — and this was back when faxes were a new and rare technology. I was leading a meeting of the LGBTQ caucus at the NCC when hotel staff delivered a fax to our meeting room. A fax?! Who would send us a fax? Louie Crew, that’s who!
Louie Crew Clay
Louie’s letter of encouragement couldn’t have come at a better time or been more welcome. It was like a ray of sunshine that lifted the spirits of the entire group of queers, myself included.
At the time I was surprised that Louie was even aware of our struggle, let alone cared enough to fax us an inspiring message. But I came to know that Louie was that kind of person, well informed and caring.
Louie became a mentor to me in a new way after his death, when I began sharing his LGBTQ history list daily in my LGBTQ Saints group on Facebook. I learned a lot from his wide-ranging list and the conversations that it provoked.
Tributes and resources on Louie Clay
His writing has been published widely, with more than 2,300 poems, articles, and essays in print. Books that he edited include “A Book of Revelations: Lesbian and Gay Episcopalians Tell Their Own Stories,” a 1991 collection of 52 biographies, and “The Gay Academic” (1978).
Integrity past president Susan Russell produced a video retrospective about Louie Clay in 2015.
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Related links:
Louie Crew Clay profile at LGBT Religious Archives Network
Louie Crew Clay interview at Queer Newark Oral History Project
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Top image credit:
“Louie Clay Crew” by Tobias Haller
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in November 2019 and was most recently updated on Nov. 26, 2023.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
I am grateful you have honored Louie’s legacy in this way.
What are the plans for his funeral and/or Memorial Service?
I will try to find out about Louie’s memorial service and post details here. Thanks for asking!
As of Friday morning (Nov. 29), there are no definite plans for a memorial service yet. I will update my article as soon as I hear the details.
A memorial service for Louie is being planned for Feb. 20 at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey.