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Em, Marie, during the eighties, Um, you were a member of the Salvation Army. Is that right? That's right. I was a soldier of the Salvation Army. I was a uniform, bonnet wearing member of the Salvation Army. And I played my room and, uh, played Cornet. So, um, my connection. I've been a church person all my life except my twenties. And when I was eight, I moved from one area to another and we moved opposite of Salvation Army family. [00:00:30] And I jumped in the car at eight and went to Sunday school, which meant I did everything available for the next 12 years. I did all the Bible study courses. I did a five year cadet course. Um, I played the tambourine. I sang in the songsters. I played in the band. I did all the Christmas carolling on the back of the bar. Uh, truck. I took all the vowels that you take at different ages in the army. So from junior soldier to senior soldier, and then eventually [00:01:00] to believing I had been called to full time ministry and had started, um, attending what they called future officer fellowships. So, uh, a minister in the church is called an officer. So I was, um the army was everything, um, And what happened? And when I went to the army at eight, I found this lovely old lady sitting in a pew. There was my grandmother, and I hadn't had much to do with Europe and so much of my life. But it [00:01:30] turned out that my great great grandparents were original salvation in the 18 eighties. When they opened, when they opened fire, as they would say, all the army opened fire. Fire A of hallelujah. And, uh, yeah, the whole military, uh, military. Uh, so, you know, the British military structure, which is what the army in in the east end of London based it on and was attractive to people. [00:02:00] So, uh, yeah, it was my life. So in the eighties, what what sort of age would you have been then? I turned 2085. So from age 8 to 20 the Salvation Army was my family, outside of home youth group, you know, horror movie nights. And, um, so really formative years, lots and lots of, um, quite some quite good Christian indoctrination alongside some very questionable stuff that I had to unravel later on. [00:02:30] But, uh, certainly really formative in terms of creating value system and and belief systems and, uh, ethical and social justice, because pre 1985 I think people would have seen the Salvation Army as social justice because they were they were there for the poor. They were there for the people. Um, you know, the storms that come, they'd be there with their cups of tea. And so there's a strong social service arm of that church [00:03:00] and, um, and a working class origins as well, which probably attracted me to it as well when I think about it. So it was it was pretty much everything. And then around, um, 84 I busted my leg up in a motorbike accident and, uh, sought some assistance from the woman's refuge of the area. And I met a worker who was to unfortunately become my partner [00:03:30] and, uh, moved from worker to partner. And yeah, it's a little bit of a a little bit of a and that's kind of key to the story, really, because it wasn't a good coming out. And so I'm a little town and somewhere else in the in the North and in Wellington. There's this big thing about to brew and blow, and because I lived in a really conservative town, we only heard one side of the story, which was the [00:04:00] Army was making a stand against homosexual law reform and there was a petition and we were expected to take that petition around. And I had my little bit of paper and put my signature on it, and he told me I can't get it off So it's on there permanently now. And I got about six signatures before I finally had some resistance and it was at work. I worked for a government department and my boss said, Get that out of my face And I thought I was [00:04:30] in trouble for taking something to work. But I was actually in trouble because I was anti gay. Were you actively yourself? Did you feel anti gay yourself? Or were you just not really realising what you're being asked to do? I didn't have a clue. I don't actually understand. When I look back now, I think God, I was naive. I was really naive and I thought, Well, this is what you do and Of course, the way it was being sold to us was that we were going to make homosexuals legal. You know, it wasn't talking about decriminalisation [00:05:00] or it wasn't. There wasn't an accurate view of what we were doing. It was this petitions against gay men. So, no, At 1920 I wasn't understanding that. And, um But who? Who was selling you? That? The inaccurate information. Was it just the people in your particular church? Well, 19 eighties we didn't have there wasn't media like there is now. So what you got came down through the war cry [00:05:30] or got fed by the captain in charge of that particular core, that particular church. So the war cry being the magazine magazine, you know, So you got told it was some years later when, 88 when I did sociology of religion, that I went back and reviewed all the newspapers in the archives from 1984 through looking at that whole period of time and talking with people from the Salvation Army. So in Wellington, there was a huge internal [00:06:00] fight within the Salvation Army about this about doing this because the Salvation Army, while they took the petition around didn't create it. They got hooked up in a certain group, got hooked up in the right wing, taking the petition around against homosexuality. And I didn't know that for another three years. So this was just expected of me. I just did it. And suddenly I've got this person at work going. What the hell are you doing? And it made me stop and think, and I was engaged. Um, you [00:06:30] know, we were gonna go into the offices together and, um who who were you? A young fellow. And before the before the motorbike. Well, he he proposed to me around the time I crashed my bike. So we were We were madly in love. I was 18, he was 19 and we were gonna get married, and, um, he and I went I had to go a separate way. He went off to university, and I had to stay put because of my leg, and he came home to see me [00:07:00] to break the engagement off because he had had a relationship with someone, and it happened to be a guy and, uh, you know, and I'm like, making toasted sandwiches for lunch and looked at him and said, Would you like another toasted sandwich? Was my first words out of my mouth? I kind of you know, So I made him, You know, I wasn't heartbroken in the sense that I'd be heartbroken now if a relationship ended, because I don't I think I was really naive. And I remember just [00:07:30] saying, Oh, here's the ring back and you have to come with me to take all the engagement presents back. So you actually you saw yourself as straight at the time. Yeah, I did. And then you met the woman from Women's Refuge. Who? And what happened then? Is that the Army? Someone in the Salvation Army? I was down at the hall one day, and this couple, who I admired, um, stopped me and said, You need to be careful [00:08:00] and I was, you know, what was that? And it's like, Well, sometimes, you know, because I by then I started getting help for having been sexually abused, and they said to me, it's not uncommon for women who have been abused to seek the solace of the arms of other women for a period of time, which is the old It's phase you're going through. Don't get caught in the trap. And I felt sick. I remember just going off somewhere outside and feeling nauseated, [00:08:30] probably from a number of levels. One. I was doing something wrong, and I've been caught out, but I wasn't quite sure what it was, but nothing had happened. So there were obviously rumours in the community about the local lesbians at the refuge. And I got caught up in that and and so suddenly I started feeling this big disconnect. And when I think about it now, had had they been able to have the conversation with me is that you're [00:09:00] fine. You know, coming out is fine. And how can we can we get you some help? Um, and be careful of this person because they're professionally abusive, not because it's a a lesbian. There would have been a whole different pathway, but back in the eighties, it was very much, um, look, our soldiers handbook. There I was a Sunday school teacher, and our soldiers handbook clearly said, um, that, um, lesbians or gays could not be in leadership positions with Children because [00:09:30] of the natural affection that rises between Children and their leaders quote unquote. And I remember that 32 years later. So So I'm aware of that in hand book. So what does any of that mean? So immediately? I'm I'm cast with, um, lesbians and gays, paedophiles and I and I'm trying to recover from my own experience. So I've got this. I've got this place that was this huge sanctuary to me suddenly pulling the carpet because [00:10:00] I'm getting feminism. And of course, 1979 80 was the United Nations women's convention. And I remember petitions then in 1979 about these feminist women. So the church was always taking this, you know, woman that need to be in their place. And if you're doing anything outside of that, then you're not part of us. So the whole question of belonging, And then when I came out there was the What was I coming out to? You know, I came out [00:10:30] to with with an older woman. Um, and I didn't actually meet any lesbians until I got to university. So I was in this relationship for a year before I had any other contact. So what? What kind of period was that was that was that was That was kind of just as the bill had been introduced and the petitions were starting to get active around the country and the scenes on Parliament steps And, um, Graham Lee Is it Graham [00:11:00] Lee saying things like, You know, if this bill passes, we'll see homosexuals holding hands on the street and he's starting to hear the radio stuff. And but certainly then so 85 homosexual law reform was just coming to the fore. And then I moved to Wellington at the end of the year, the kind of the thing at work where the boss said No, not signing that. And then I transfer over to actually, um, suddenly I'm in a different world. We're still with the church, [00:11:30] just just hanging by my teeth and something happened. I couldn't even tell you what it was, but I think it was actually I do. I was trying to be a woman in a brass band and upper hut. Um, I got transferred from a corner because it wasn't proficient enough for that little group, and they put me on a different instrument and I didn't get it. Something happened in a band practise one night, got up, walked out, put the instrument back in its case and left. And you know, no one ever came and spoke to me. I've been been in the army for 12 [00:12:00] years. Was looking at a Future Officers fellowship believed in their calling and And who was they went there. They kind of they completely failed and any Christian obligation, let alone a human obligation to ask if I was right. And then I ended up being in this really isolation, isolated relationship for three years with a saving grace with university in the woman's room. So you were with a woman during that time. So by the end of 85 the [00:12:30] woman who I was seeing at the refuge in my hometown moved to Wellington also and continued the relationship with me. And then I went to university and I found a woman's room, and I was like, I didn't know people could dress differently or they were allowed to. I was that naive. And then, of course, in 1986 they had the big celebration in the town hall. So I ended up going to the town hall, and I remember when I'm 20 not quite 21 and standing up the top of town hall and looking down over this weirdest [00:13:00] mob of people I've ever seen in my life. Remember, I'm used to Salvation Army uniform and school uniform, and I think the most disturbing characters to me were the gay men and the leather chaps. That's wonderful. Oh, well, it is now. But you know, when you're 20 you've never seen anything like that in your life. And they had their leather caps on and their chains and and I was just goggle eyed like Oh, my God, what is this? And so suddenly my whole world exploded, actually. But But but But going from [00:13:30] 85 taking the petition around 86 to being out living in a lesbian relationship I, I went to a couple of conferences. I remember two significant points of my coming out as lesbian. One was going to a, uh, lesbian engaged in education conference, and they headed up at Victoria. So it was really, um uh, there was some upset around the academic setting of having such a a conference there, and the the lesbian facilitators separated us out into gay male [00:14:00] lesbian right and then they asked us to separate it into working class middle class. Now I was so naive. I put myself in the middle class lesbian group to talk about class, racism, gender issues. I mean, I don't know what the hell it hit me. Um, I thought I was middle class because I'd gone to university and had a little bit of money to do that, Um, which was nothing about that at all. So that was the first I learned about working class. And then later on in the year, another [00:14:30] conference that was held up at Wellington Polytech and my partner and I at the time had two boy Children and they were offering childcare. And I remember turning up with the boy Children and, um, me. And when I was just flopping out that not thinking about they were going to be providing K. But what was so amazing about that workshop was sitting next to me was a young Maori woman who said, You know, I'm young, I'm a lesbian and I'm black and I'm at the lowest, [00:15:00] and I'd never been exposed to any such thinking like that. I'm in my first year of sociology. So? So I. I got to meet lesbians that weren't all stereotypical or oh, like the Salvation Army said they were. And then all of all, around that period of 86 88 when it became more and I started researching sociologically and getting a research brain and understanding that the Army itself, the Salvation Army, was very split [00:15:30] and that it was a core group of six men higher up in the office who announced to the people what was happening. And there was a very big core group here in Wellington who said No, we don't agree with the Army doing this petition. Did you do any thing yourself to challenge the Army? Um, later, later, when I started writing about it and then, um, as I got into the workforce, I remember, You know, when I go on training things, there'd be [00:16:00] Army people. Um, I remember working for an agency and NGO, um that got together with the Salvation Army to do some Christmas carols, and I knew that particular branch of the Army didn't allow women in their band. And I said to my manager, I'm only partaking in the Christmas carols with the Salvation Army Band if I'm allowed to bring my corner. And I turned up in my black, you know, my leather riding gear and played by corner with the male only. So they show me band down on the streets of Wellington and deliberately [00:16:30] and I knew they were. They knew I was out. So this was 1989 90 So very early on. And I started writing stuff and and challenging it. And yeah, like, that's how I got to learn that not not everyone agreed with what had happened. How did you learn that? Were you interviewing people? Well, I just stopped talking to people who I was working with, like we might be in a class together, doing some social service training, and and I'd generally say something like, You know, I left the Army because of, you know, I'd come out about that, [00:17:00] and I had I had one guy I remember coming up to my door in Christchurch when I lived in Christchurch for a couple of years knocking on my door and I opened the door and he looked at me and he said, I guess you're not giving me anything. He knew me. I said, No, I'm not. But would you like a cup of tea? Because it's bloody exhausting work running around the streets, sleeping, you know? And so and so that person. And I think where I got to a few years ago when I read some of the rain, though Wellington stuff that the Army, while not apologised, has made a move towards some reconciliation [00:17:30] in. And this is where they got it very, very wrong in separating out the moral issue in the policy and the legal issues. So what they weren't getting was that this was a move to decriminalise homosexual acts, not a move to legal legalise it. There was something wrong in that. But then there was also the policy level and that the Army have every right actually to have their moral stance. You know, if a [00:18:00] church wants to hold a moral stance like that, Um, but policy wise, they did it very, very bad. The whole process and I, they have apologised for process issues, which for some, is not enough. But I for me opens up dialogue, and I know I've I've got friends who are gay who have stayed in the Salvation Army, who you work in the gay Christian networks and have talked to me about when I come back, You know, if things moved [00:18:30] enough, Um, and I belong to a couple of intentional communities online from all around the world of people who have stayed in the Army, um, or or have left but identify as non heteronormative. Whatever that means wasn't around when I came out. Um, I've spoken to some other people who are activists during those years 85 86. And they there's, [00:19:00] um, some stories about standing outside the citadel in, um in Wellington, Salvation Army Citadel and and singing and, um, book of protesting There. Were you ever part of that I? I was still in the Salvation Army, so I was still attending the cop, but I was attending Wellington South, so But I knew about this activism, and I didn't know that word then so that, you know, I knew there was stuff happening. But by by then I I'd crossed over into this [00:19:30] university world where I met Alison Laurie and Prue Hyman and Judith Dale, who were these extraordinary lesbian feminist academics and I. I took to, um, university work like duck water. Seriously, it was it was just, like coming home. So at the end of the first year, I, um, 86 I had to do a small research paper for sociology to show show. I understood methodology, and I did a qualitative survey of, uh, where [00:20:00] I interviewed, um, Prue, Heman, and Alison Laurie and the student Council at that time. And my research was defining homophobia and defining heteros, which was huge. So this is the end of 86. I've just been to the town hall and seen all these weird and wonderful people and and also started to meet people who are not like my partner who who was violent. And it wasn't a lot later. So I worked out to the professional abuse component of all of that. So here I am in my early twenties, [00:20:30] um, in a in A in a classical, Stereotypical. This is the relationship you should have avoided. The Salvation Army is telling you so, um, without the Salvation Army and without Christianity. Because that all went through my twenties. There was nothing left. And my and my mother and father, you know, we don't talk about it. And it wasn't until I left that relationship in 1988 I rang mum and dad to say I had moved house and there were [00:21:00] some few words of wisdom. One for my mother was Don't tell your father you've broken up and I was like, Oh, she knows. And, um and my father got on the phone and said, You be careful living in So a bit of racism of the, you know, and or have you had a fight with her, You know, so knowing then that they knew that there wasn't words there in 87 88 and so it was easy for me when I next I met someone else my own age. That's when I met you. Actually, [00:21:30] Jack and I was going out with a woman my own age slightly a little bit younger, buying motorbikes, doing things that young people should be doing instead of being responsible for three teenage Children and a and a woman who professionally abused me and I had to recover from that. So So my coming out is in waves, but it's kind of come full circle when I look back over the Salvation Army, Um, era. Um, just recently in London, in London they had their 150 years celebration [00:22:00] and a group of LBQT I and Allied people and the army took the red shield, which is the a symbol of the Salvation Army. And and and, uh, got rainbow ones made. And there was only about 100 of them made and, uh, two friends of mine, one who was Salvation Army here bought one up to me on my 50th birthday and gave it to me on the deck. And I've got that sitting pride of joy on my little alter. This little red shield, which is a rainbow shield, [00:22:30] is that because the Salvation Army in the UK have a chapter or I think they have, it's different in the UK to the US. They're very different structures. Um, I just think there's more and more people coming through in our generation saying, You know, that was all wrong, and there's there's no problem. And so there's a real focus on not so much the law of you can't be, but the focus of the gospel message, which is love and inclusiveness. [00:23:00] And if you keep the gospel as simple as that Then then you've got a basis to deal with right wing homophobia and extremism. So you can you can join in with the progressive Christian movement or the Progressive Interfaith Movement, which there are whole groups of nationalists doing that here in New Zealand here in the UK. And here in the US. So a little group in the UK I mean, those little badges. I saw them coming through on Facebook, and I was just dying for one, you know, like it was the ultimate symbol and some kind of [00:23:30] acceptance at some level. Um, but there's there's a lot of work to do in the Army. I could never go back. Um, not after what happened. Um, and that's not where my Christianity lies, either. I have a much more progressive, um, postmodern probably, uh, view than the Army do. They're too conservative. Uh, so so it's been a full circle. I remember someone interviewing me in 1987 for one of the sociology religion projects and [00:24:00] me talking like this about what that was like and it was still in a place of a lot of hurt, But what I've seen happen in the last five years is much more dialogue. Um, between groups, not just individuals within the church, the church, but also, um, some gay groups with some church groups and a move away from that really extraordinary time in the mid eighties [00:24:30] where we had, you know, Fran Wild and, um, when the petition was presented, and all the right wing seeing God of nations. And do you remember when that was happening? How you were at that time, how you felt about that? I was intrigued. I was absolutely politically intrigued. I see, because I'd come through 1981 as a performer. So I'd known about protest, and I knew where I stood on a Springbok tour [00:25:00] and I was wanted. The Springbok tour stopped, which was a really unusual position to have taken in my family, but also within the church because they were all ugly mad. So I'd already experienced being on the outer of that. And in 1986 5, when I was taking petition around and I didn't take it around anymore after that person challenged me six signatures and and a rejection, I was It was a shock to me that people had different [00:25:30] opinions. I know that. Well, I learned it very quickly, and so maybe there was something wrong about that. Did you? Did you go back and challenge anyone around there at the time? Like I can? Not quite. Oh, absolutely not. Not at the time, because it was I. I take a while to kind of put it all together and benefit of hindsight now, But certainly when broke up with me, Um, he went off to university and he did all these gay things and I'd still go down there and stay with that cohort of friends because we were all [00:26:00] at school together and it and it never worried me that he was. And I and I think I think we were probably quite more liberal in my family than I thought we were because there was no overt or covert, um, anti gay stuff. I don't think in the family. I mean, there was always that stuff around mucking, paedophilia and I. I think the thing about homosexual reform when I look back over it now, there were there was a lot of gay male visibility [00:26:30] and there was one final straw that happened in my family. We celebrated 20th birthday. So I'm 20 in 1985 September and I hired the Salvation Army Hall, um, to have my 20th, which was going to be a mixture of Christian and Non-christian and a number of my non-christian people turned up not knowing that it wasn't OK to bring alcohol. I hadn't specifically said that. I just assumed, you know, Salvation Army. You don't bring alcohol into the hall. And there was some big upset [00:27:00] like the youth group leaders. Absolutely dis designed me. And one of them went off to ring the cop Sergeant Major. And when she came back, I said, Well, how did she get on? And she said, Well, he said, because you're not an Army family, Um and it's an outside thing, so it doesn't matter. It's OK. They can have their alcohol here. And she was obviously, really piss off. But what happened was suddenly there was a lot of noise and upset outside, and I thought, What's going on? I went outside. I found out later it was a gay group from Nelson, [00:27:30] came over and spray painted homosexual homosexuals rule or homosexuals rock or something right across the back of the Salvation Army on the night I'm having my 20th birthday party. Right. So get this I. I was kind of appalled that anyone could do such a thing because I didn't know people were allowed to do graffiti then either. So I remember going outside and I remember I was still a good Salvation Army girl and say, Oh, you know, I sort of like you fucking bastards. How dare they, you know, feigning outrage [00:28:00] at this. Well, the letters that came to me later weren't about, you know, not being supportive of gay people or, you know, not being shocked about the graffiti or not about the alcohol being walked to my party. But it was the fact that I said, Fuck, you know, where was the love of that? I had to love those people from Nelson that had, you know, gay people who had come over and spray. And I mean, how deliciously ironic is that to have happened. And that kind of dear is demarcation [00:28:30] point. That's the September 1985. Done the petition. I've done the engagement. The engagement is over because he's run off. You know, done. Whatever. Um, I'm hanging in my the skin of my teeth in the army, and suddenly that's the last straw. You know, I'm not showing enough love, and I'm hanging around with bloody lesbians and, um, you know, and I remember getting phone calls for ages in my first year at university in 86 from people in the army, you know, we've [00:29:00] got you on a prayer chain and, you know, but they'd never say the word. They were praying for you praying very hard for me. But there was no mention of the word because you were I couldn't get that word out. But, you know, I'd get these random phone calls in o'clock Saturday morning and I'd be in bed with my partner, and they're like, You know, we're really worried about your soul and Marie and I and like, I mean, I feel like it's kind of got that hilarious side, but it's got that sad side as well. Of had they known how to talk to you, Some [00:29:30] a young person coming out, I wouldn't have got on to the shit that I got into in those first three years. Those first three or four years. So So it was a period of extremes to me, and I and I, um, I really value still value my Salvation Army connections very much. Um, I've got Salvation Army friends of my age who have come right around, and they're thinking, um, I've got some young people who were about three or four when I was [00:30:00] a teenager, and so when I left at 20 they would have been four or five. They are in their thirties now. They've contacted me by Facebook and said we would hope nothing like that would ever happen again. So it's like the next generation are apologising, and I think that's extraordinarily powerful stuff that we can dialogue. So that's my coming out, and that's my salvation. I've still got my bonnet, Um, my three ribbons that were on my timber timber in the Salvation Army. You have red, yellow and blue red for the blood [00:30:30] of Christ. I think blues for the purity and yellows for the fire, and I took my three ribbons. My Tim, Tam and Tim went to women's studies department at Vic, Um, when I left and the I wrote names of my ancestors, women, ancestors and myself, and I sold them to the rape crisis, cloak lovely.
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