UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
MADISON’S LGBT COMMUNITY, 1960s-PRESENT

Interview #940
Bosworth, Lewis
Bosworth, Lewis (1942- )
UW Undergraduate Student (1960-1964), Wisconsin State employee 
At UW: 1972-2003

Interviewed: 	April 7, 2009
Interviewer: 	Scott Seyforth
Index by: 	Scott Seyforth
Length: 	66 minutes
Series: 	Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s to present

00:00:00	Start of Second Interview Session
SS: 	OK. This is Scott Seyforth, and I'm with Lewis Bosworth. And it is Tuesday, April 7, 2009. And we're at Lewis' home on Barlow Street in Madison. And Lewis, thanks so much for making time today. 
LB: 	You're very welcome. 
SS: 	So when we left off last time we were talking about Rodney Scheel. And so maybe we could just pick up there today? 
00:00:33
LB: 	OK, that's great. Well, many people know who Rodney Scheel was since he no longer is with us. Rodney was a senior in high school at Madison Central High School downtown where MITC is currently located, when he met his longtime partner, lover, Warren Olson. And Rodney was a frequent visitor to my friend Jess's house over on Stephen Street, as was Warren. So when I met both of them it was in the early '70s. And subsequently, in the later '70s after Rodney started The Back Door Ltd., or The Back Door on Park Street, a gay bar. He bought the Hotel Washington and started a bar called Rod's where I later on worked. And he was kind of the focal point, and the Hotel Washington was the focal point, for the gay and lesbian-- pretty much gay community, but also the lesbian community to a certain extent-- in Madison during the '70s. From about 1978 or 1979, through the end of that decade. We worked with him on a number of different projects in the Hotel Washington. I was the manager of the door, so to speak, on Beer Bash Sundays at Rod's. And then graduated, if you can call it that, to being a full-fledged bartender and assistant to the manager, Mike Uselman. And I edited Rod's newsletter which came out more or less quarterly for most of about 10 years. And I also managed what I used to call Levi Leather Store, down at the bottom of the steps, as you had to walk down some steps at Rod's to get into it. And at the bottom of those steps there was a little, what we called the Levi Leather Store, called Something Different. And I remember, among other things, that in addition to some Chicago-esque Levi Leather kinds of things-- oh, I don't know, cock rings and other such paraphernalia-- we had many different colored hankies. And there was at the time and still is I think somewhere, a hanky code. And what that meant was depending on which pocket in your Levis, or your pants, you put these hankies, the left side or the right side, it indicated whether you were passive or active, sexually. And we had many different colored hankies for sale, and many other kinds of things, too. I think we had lubricant, and I think we had some denim products. I can't remember exactly what all things were that we sold, but I undertook to manage that little place for a couple of years. And it was taken over by one of our late brothers, Ray Burns, who was an actor kind of person. That is to say, he was very active in the theater. And he took it over because I became involved in other kinds of things, many of them administrative in nature which is of course what I did for a living, in part. And consequently, it was kind of a natural kind of thing for me to do. But back to Rodney. Towards the end of the 10 years that Rodney owned Rod's and managed the entire building-- and I don't know if I said this before, but Rod's was pretty much a gay bar-- but it had two offshoots. One was a bar way on the third floor of the hotel called The New Bar, which got its name because it was a new bar that he decided to build. It was a dance bar as well, and it had many TVs which was pretty innovative at time. There was a lot of videotaping going on. In any case, The New Bar, which was called The New Bar because it was a new bar, retained that name for its entire existence. When we began to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Rod's-- oh, I forgot the third component to the three so-called gay bars in the establishment, in the hotel. The third one was what we called The Back Bar. Now The Back Bar was kind of a sleazy place on the same level as Rod's, and it was pretty known throughout the community for overt sexual activity. And it also was the first place in town, that I can recall of any of the many gay bars in Madison's history, to have porn showing most of the time. And at the time I believe it was not DVDs as we know them today, but VHS porn tapes. And, of course, that added to the sexual component of that particular part of the hotel. Anyway, back to Rodney himself. Rodney became ill with AIDS towards the end of the first 10 years of the existence of Rod's, the bar. And eventually he succumbed to AIDS, and I will get to that in just a minute. He was a brilliant businessman for a young man, by my standards a young man anyway. And he was really, really wonderful at managing this entire hotel complex. 
00:08:27 
LB:	I may have mentioned to you before, Scott, that Randy Alexander, the developer, owned a building directly behind the Hotel Washington. And he also, if I recall correctly, owned the Old Madison Depot, the train station, across the way, across the parking lot from the Hotel Washington. And at one point he built a fence. He was very homophobic, and he built a fence because he owned the parking lot, not behind the hotel but on the side of the hotel. And he built a fence to protect somebody from all these faggots hanging out at the Hotel Washington. And Rodney was furious about that because it blocked his view of the side parking lot, even though it was owned by Randy Alexander. And there wasn't anything he could do about it because it wasn't on property he owned, but he was very, very angry about it. Now towards the end, to come back to Rodney's life story as it were. Towards the end of his life, Rodney was very ill as I mentioned. He was hospitalized for awhile. And subsequently, when he died, I believe it was 1979 or '80? I really can't recall exactly. 
00:10:18
SS: 	1990? 
LB: 	1990? 
SS:	 When he died? 
LB:	Was it? 
SS:	I think so. 
LB: 	Oh. I guess I'm way off on my dates. But in any case, yes, it could well have been 1990. But I wrote his obituary for the gay press, and by gay press I mean Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, of course. And also wrote the obituary for him, and that was published in the Madison newspapers at the time. As I mentioned, his lover/partner was Warren Olson. Now Warren Olson belonged to my church, or I joined my church because of Warren, actually. And I'll talk a little bit more about my activities with the church in a minute, but I want to call attention-- it really was, I shouldn't be saying it quite this way, but it really was as late as 1990? 
SS: 	I think that, yeah. 
LB: 	Was it really? I hope they'll edit that. I guess I'm thoroughly confused. Doesn't sound right to me. 
SS: 	Well, let's see. If Rod's opened in 1980-- 
LB: 	No. Well, 1979. 
SS: 	1979. And then if he died shortly after the 10th year anniversary, I guess that would be around 1990. 
LB: 	Well, '79, '89-- oh, I'm sorry. Now it's making sense to me. I got confused. I thought you were in a different decade, and I thought wait a minute, this is not correct. But now I see what you're saying. OK. 1990, let's say. In any case, because I was a member of-- it happens to be Luther Memorial Church, on University Avenue, 1021 University Avenue. Warren, when Rodney died, asked our former pastor at the time to preside over Rodney's funeral, which he did. And the pastor, Pastor Bremer, asked me and another gay member of Luther Memorial Church to serve communion for his funeral, which we then did. Now it's important to understand that for us, in our tradition at Luther Memorial Church, a funeral or a memorial service for that matter are worship services. And so even though Rodney's casket was in place at the time-- I might add, too, that our former pastor who was presiding over the funeral, said that he had never seen in his entire pastorate of some 17 odd years, he'd never seen the church that full. Which of course spoke to the enormous popularity that Rodney enjoyed. In any case, as a devout Lutheran when, speaking for myself, when I was participating in the service, many gay men, all of whom knew new Rodney one way or the other, said they wanted to march by his casket and put roses on it. And I informed them that that was completely inappropriate. They couldn't do that. Not during a worship service. And they kind of scowled-- well, they more than scowled, they were furious with me. But I had to uphold a worship service that I was participating in according to our tradition. So I guess with that I'll stop talking about Rodney, unless you can think of something that I left out. 
00:14:47
SS: 	Can you describe-- is there a story or two that you have about him they would sort of illustrate who he was, what he was like to work for, what his personality was like, how he ran the business? 
LB: 	Well, as I already mentioned, he was a very astute businessman. But looking back on Rodney Scheel, for one thing, I forgot to mention the Rodney Scheel House, which happened after he died and hopefully you'll remind me to get back to that. He was a very astute businessmen, but he was known primarily for his good looks and he was a very good looking man. Salt and pepper hair, bordering on the grey and white in later years, but he also had a wonderful smile which was-- I'm looking for the right word-- it was contagious. And Rodney also had a very high libido, and was known for some of his sexual exploits. I guess he and Warren had a somewhat open relationship-- well, I know. I don't guess, I know-- that they had an open relationship and sometime shared boyfriends or partners in the course of their relationship, and they were together a long time. During the years when he was still well, Warren owned a house on Lake Shore Drive, I think. Right on Lake Monona. I believe it was Lake Shore Drive. In any case, they would have regular ice skating parties, and lots of fun things going on once a year for sure, if not more frequently. And the last time I saw Rodney alive-- I know I'm skipping around a bit here, but-- Warren asked me to come over one day. At the time I happened to have been a notary public, as well as a university administrator and teacher, and Rodney had to notarize something, I don't recall what. But he was very ill in bed, and Warren had to help him. I told them what we needed to do to make it all legal and everything, whatever the document was, I can't recall. But apparently it needed to be notarized. I remember that Warren had to guide Rodney's hand with his hand so he could sign the document, so it would come out more or less legibly rather than coming out kind of like a huge scribble. I think that was the last time I saw Rodney alive. Well, I think that may answer your question. 
00:18:25
SS: 	Uh huh, uh huh. You're talking about him as an astute businessman, and in our conversation that we had that was not on the table, you were mentioning some of the advertising that you had done. And I was surprised at things like, you know, you had said you had like 1,200 people on the newsletter mailing list at a time. 
LB:	 Something like that, yes. 
SS: 	But you also had a separate mailing list that was hundreds of gay bars across the country. And you would mail things on a regular basis, in addition to all of these gay bars in every state, updating them on what was going on at Rod's. 
LB: 	Uh huh. We had a sizable number of gay men coming to Rod's. The Hotel Washington complex in general, but Rod's in particular, had a sizable following from Chicago, Milwaukee, and other places, particularly around the Midwest. But we did do a mailing, as you indicated, to gay bars. And also, we did a lot of advertising. I was pretty much in charge of this. In gay publications, in particular-- I recall In Touch magazine, which still exists if I recall correctly, but others as well. So there was a big advertising campaign, and I might add that one of the things we did also was, I would call it today a PR campaign. Which meant that I and a few other guys would leave Madison and visit gay bars and their orders in other communities, particularly in Wisconsin. I remember Appleton was a favorite destination for us. Larry Bowman was the name of the manager that I traveled with from time to time. Particularly, I remember a trip to Appleton, but there were other places as well. And what we did, of course, was-- well, we partied for one thing. But we also spent time with the bar owners or managers and went out for dinner and all kinds of social things, then we'd spend time in the bars themselves. I don't recall the name of the bar in Appleton, but it's not very important. What is important is that we did this traveling around, PR kind of business. 
SS: 	Talk about the birthdays. What you did for birthdays. 
LB: 	You mean the birthdays of-- oh, what we did for people on the mailing list, and what we did if they happened to show up? Oh, well that's something that we did at Rod's, among other things. Those were of course in my younger years when I really didn't care about decorum very much, except at work. We had a habit of, not only on birthdays but in general, in warm weather in particular but perhaps also in colder weather, of tearing people's underwear off and hanging the remnants from the pipes. Now, remember that Rod's was in the basement, and so the old hotel water pipes hung down below the ceiling level. And we would grab people's underwear and tear them off. I didn't, of course, engage in this activity, but some people did. And we would hang the underwear from the pipes as kind of trophies. And I recall also, in my capacity as an assistant manager or assistant to the manager, one of my duties was to produce some buttons. And the buttons had torn off underwear on them with Rod's logo, which was a bit risque in the first place. It looked kind of like two penises attached to the word Rod's. In any case, one time I had to take a copy of this. I had made into buttons, meaning the metallic kinds of buttons that people still use today in political campaigns and so on, and I took them to a place called AR Graphics. Now AR Graphics was owned by a pillar of my church. But I had not yet joined this church, so I didn't know that. I found it out later. I wasn't terribly embarrassed by this, and they wanted money, the business, so they made the buttons. But, had I known everything that I know now at the time, I probably would have taken them elsewhere. Today I probably would have ordered them on the internet or something. 
SS: 	Didn't you maintain a birthday list by month, and you would send out a list? And how did that work? 
LB: 	But we had a list. People got on the-- men, mostly, if not almost exclusively-- mailing list in the first place by filling out a little card. A little, small 3x5 index card of some sort, and one of the things we asked them was when their birthday was. Now we didn't ask for the year, although some people provided that information, but we were more interested in the day and the month because we did send out birthday cards around the time of the guy's birthdays, and then we would invite them to come to a special event that we had. I can't remember exactly what day of the week it was, or what time of the month it was, but we usually had birthday parties where we invited all the people whose birthdays fell in that time period to come to Rod's and celebrate their birthdays. I don't recall if we did anything in particular for them-- maybe to them, but not necessarily for them-- on the occasion of birthday Sundays, or Saturdays, or whatever it was. But we certainly did invite them, and we kept a separate list for birthdays and we'd send them a special mailing in addition to Rod's newsletter that went to our entire mailing list. Now I should add at this time a comment about the mailing list. The mailing list, given the nature of this population, was constantly wrong. It had to be corrected all the time. Rodney would hand me a stack of newsletters, or birthday cards, or both, that had been returned by the Post Office. And so I would have to go correct the mailing list, either deleting people entirely, or if the Post Office had provided new addresses, I would change the addresses. It was very time consuming. Rodney at one point, although he was not prone to anger really at all, was concerned about the cost of the postage because the newsletters and/or birthday cards had to go out first class which meant that the postage got expensive. Nothing like today's first class postage, but nevertheless, if you have a stack of returned mail that is six inches tall or something, it means you spent all that postage for naught, and that, of course, costs a lot of money. But for my part, maintaining that mailing list was a big thorn in my side because it was a royal pain. I got paid to do all this work that I was doing, but I did it because it was part of my job. 
00:28:12
SS: 	You had mentioned wanting to talk about the Rodney Scheel house? 
LB: 	Oh, yes. After Rodney died, this was an effort that was largely spearheaded by his secretary, or administrative assistant for that matter, Pam [? Giesler. ?] And prior to her leaving the hotel, which came later on, she spearheaded the Rodney Scheel House on the east side. I'm not exactly sure I remember where on the east side it is, but it was kind of like a hospice, as I recall. And what it was a place where people with HIV/AIDS could go and live relatively cheaply if not free of charge. And as I recall, the family and Pam had a fundraiser of sorts, periodically, and tried to collect a lot of money to support the house. Of course they had to buy the land and build it in the first place. I think it still exists today, but I'm not sure. I never saw it and I know very little more than what I've just said about it. 
00:29:40
SS:	 You had mentioned to me wanting to talk about the MAGIC picnics, and I wonder if it's worth describing the picnics. What were some of the traditions of the picnic? How is it related to the hotel? 
LB:	 Well, Rodney, as part of his function as community leader, and he was indeed a community leader, hosted the first MAGIC picnic. Now, MAGIC-- I hope I can come up with what MAGIC stood for, because it still does-- Madison Area Gay Interim Committee. I think I'm right about that. So it became known. It was held annually during the summer, I think around July 4th, I'm not exactly certain of that, but it was around there, at Brittany Park on the shores of Lake Monona. Yes, that's right. And it was pretty much a half day event starting around, oh, I don't know, 10:00-11:00 in the morning, and going until 5:00-6:00 in the afternoon, or early evening. And it had brats and burgers, and kegs of beer. Pretty standard fare for picnics, in Madison anyway. And Rodney had organized all these games and events. Now a few of them I can remember. One was a balloon toss, and that was an event where a bunch of men and women-- because this was attended by a fairly sizable number of lesbians as wells as gay men, the picnic I mean-- would line up on two sides of a line drawn in the grass, for lack of a better way of putting it, and they had balloons filled with water and they would toss them to people in the other line. And of course many of them would break while they were being retrieved or caught, and people would get all wet. Well that of course added to the merriment in a sense, because when they got all wet their T-shirts would become translucent-- and I'm talking about men and women-- which led to a lot of people being a little bit embarrassed maybe, but mostly it was all in fun. Besides, a large number of the participants in MAGIC picnics were, by that time, fairly drunk. Nothing too strange, not for Madison anyway. And then there were other things, like races of one sort and another, and-- 
SS: 	Wasn't there a drag race? 
LB: 	Oh yes, thank you. Yes, there was. It was what we in the community called, for the picnics, a 'high-heeled' race. So this was a race where a lot of men wore high heels and tried to beat the other guys in a fairly standard kind of race. Well of course they all fell down and their stiletto heels, if that's what they were, would break and they'd fall down because many of them were still quite inebriated. But yes, it was a high-heeled race. That's what I remember, anyway. And then there were other events. Some people would simply go swimming in Lake Monona. And the other part about the MAGIC picnics, perhaps the more serious part of the MAGIC picnics, was that members of different gay and lesbian associations, organizations, in Madison would set up booths and distribute printed material and answer questions. And the gay center was one of them, in the early days of the MAGIC picnic, but there were many others as well. The names of some of those organizations or associations I don't recall right now, but there was a sizable amount of seriousness to the MAGIC picnics. And that was primarily because of these exhibits or booths were put on by various associations and organizations. I know I worked in one of them occasionally in the early days of the MAGIC picnic. 
SS: 	Which booth was that? 
LB: 	Well I think it was the Gay Center at the time, because I was working for the Gay Center. As a volunteer, but nevertheless, I was working for the Gay Center for a while and we took turns. This was, by the way, the early days of the MAGIC picnics preceded the HIV/AIDS crisis. So there wasn't any presence of what was then to become, after 1980 or so, the-- I'm drawing a blank on the name of the organization-- The Madison AIDS Support Network, MASN, as an AIDS support network. And so there was no emphasis in the early days of the MAGIC picnics on HIV/AIDS. And after a while, when I stopped working for The Hotel Washington, I stopped going to the MAGIC picnics because I'm not really that kind of person. It wasn't something that I was terribly interested in, but in the early days I was usually there for a while. 
00:36:19 
SS: 	I wonder, should we talk a little bit about your church work? 
LB: 	Yes. I did mention the church a while ago in the context of it being the location of Rodney Scheel's funeral, and the fact that I served Communion for his funeral. Now after I was a member of that church for a while, a group of four of us, two women, and my friend Gary Brown and I-- a member of the church, Gary is a member of the church-- went to the pastor at the time, Pastor Harvey Peters, this was in the early '90s, I think, and asked him if we could become affiliated with what is still called today The Reconciled in Christ Movement. Now The Reconciled in Christ Movement-- both these women, by the way, in this group of four of us who went to see Pastor Peters, were lesbians as you might expect. And they were both psychiatrists, interestingly. As was Warren, but he wasn't part of this group. Anyway, Reconciled in Christ is a group that still exists and we wanted to become a Reconciled in Christ congregation. Now one of the leaders in this movement in Madison is our sister church, University of United Methodist, which is right down the street from our church, among others. First Congregational and [UNINTELLIGIBLE] Church of Christ comes to mind. But it's very interesting how Pastor Peters handled this request because what he said was, and this is very serious talk, we don't need to be part of a movement called Reconciled in Christ because we already are. Now that was his theology. We were a bit taken aback by that. Although when we thought about it, we thought, uh huh, I guess we understand where he's coming from, why he would not want us to set ourselves apart as being reconciled in Christ because we already were. At the time, of course, we also knew that we had a fairly sizable gay and lesbian membership in our congregation. Now what we did accomplish however, as an offshoot of our pastor's saying that we didn't need to be reconciled because we already were, was we then asked him if we could start a gay and lesbian group. And he said, well, that would be fine, but you have to understand that it would be like any other church group. I mean, anybody is welcome, even if they're not gay or lesbian, and we tried to couple our meetings, which usually happened on the third or fourth Sunday of the month, I can't recall, after church. And we'd usually have food, and we'd also organize some other events such as picnics away from the site, location of the church. In any case, we usually would have, at our meetings, either a speaker from the outside, and our meetings were always open to the public. And when we had somebody coming in from the outside, or even if we had somebody internally who spoke to us, or talked with us, we would invite the entire congregation. And occasionally we had straight people show up, members of congress, and sometimes others. We usually sang a hymn, and had a prayer. all things you'd expect would be done in a church group. Whoever edits this, pay no attention to my telephone. It's probably telemarketing or something. I lost my train of thought. 
SS: 	You'd have speakers, and you had them open to the whole congregation. 
LB: 	I remember one time-- well, I remember two things just as examples of what we attempted to do with the congregation, for the congregation-- sounds like a political campaign, but there were two things that we did that I recall right now although we did many other things as well. One of the things we did was we had a panel comprised of members of PFLAG, Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays, I think that's the correct term for the acronym, PFLAG. So we had parents on this panel. In particular, there were three that I recall right now. Two were Joann and Joe Elder from the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and another was a woman who's no longer alive, the mother of one of the young men. Not in our congregation but from PFLAG. And I don't recall how to pronounce her name, exactly, but she was the co-owner of The Mariner's Inn out in Middleton, and I think a couple of other restaurants. Very well known in the PFLAG community, and in Madison and Middleton in general, for her work. And then we also had Jane [? LeFlash, ?] who was also a member of PFLAG. She had a gay son, the Elder's had a gay son, and so did, I want to say, Betty. Betty something. The woman who owned The Mariner's Inn. I can't think her name exactly, but I think was Betty. So we had this panel and members of the congregation attended it, as well as our gay and lesbian friends and members of the congregation. And then on another occasion we sponsored an event for the entire congregation, but for us as well, and we asked Jim Steakley of the UW Madison German Department, to speak to us about the persecution of gay men during the Holocaust. And Jim had given this talk before, so as you might imagine since he was a university professor accustomed to doing this sort of thing, it was very, very well done with the slides and so on and so forth. And it was very well attended by members of the congregation who weren't at all gay and lesbian. And that was one of the things that Pastor Peters wanted us to be very careful about. That any event that we had, including our own regular meetings, would be open to anybody in the congregation. And we were more than happy do that if it didn't pose any problem for us. But those are just two examples of the kinds of programming that we did that were open to everybody, including the general public. Now we also had an ad in the Resource Guide, I think it's called? 
SS: 	The LGBT Community Resource Guide? 
LB: 	Yes, the LGBT Community Resource Guide. I think it was called the Resource Guide. 
SS: 	Yeah, The Outreach puts that together. 
LB: 	Yeah. And in our ad we put the mission of the church. And I won't quote the mission for you, I couldn't probably do so if I wanted to, not in its entirety anyway, but it had to do with inclusive ministry, and things of that nature. 

00:45:23
LB:	Well, that kind of covers our work. Now, two things have happened since then. One is that, during the Pastorate of Pastor Shelley Bobb, one of our recent senior pastors, the Luther Memorial Gay Lesbian and Friends-- which we came to call it later-- Fellowship, disbanded. And so I was a little bit concerned about this, although I hadn't been very active in it for some time. So I asked the pastor why this had happened, and she said, well I think we have to face the fact that perhaps it's outlived its usefulness. But the other side of that coin, the disbanding of the fellowship group was in 2007, I think, maybe it was 2006, but anyway, much more recently. The congregation counsel, which is known in some churches as the church council, voted to become a Reconciled in Christ Congregation. And we have yet to implement that, I've read the other day, but that just goes to show you how these things within the church community, in any case, could come full circle. Now I think you told me something else that I really didn't know, and that's that the MAGIC picnic itself has evolved, has changed, since its early days when it was a lot of fun and frolicking, and carrying on, and playing games, and drinking lots of beer and eating burgers and brats. And it's now part of the Gay Pride Celebration weekend, which also is around the Fourth of July, roughly. And I have not been to one of these-- but of course, I don't go to events like that anymore at all because I'm not able to do so physically, but besides that, I'm not a very big picnic person. But I just thought I'd say that, because I don't know what it has become, but you probably know so you can add that to your testimony. 
SS:	 So, the church group, the fellowship group, the Lesbian Gay Fellowship Group. I'm curious what the reaction was from the congregation initially, and did that change over time? 
LB: 	The reaction to the formation of the group? It was very positive. We have used to have, and still do, a very sizable number of gay men and lesbians in the congregation. And by and large, I might have expected a sizable group of parishioners, members of the congregation, to object to the fact that we were being so open and vocal about all of this kind of thing, the group, and having these panel discussions and talks, and so on, on gay themes. But I didn't see any of that. So if there was any talk behind my back, behind our backs, the gay lesbian members of the congregation, I didn't hear about it. And the pastor who started it all, Pastor Peters, was extremely supportive. And he said once, although he retired a little bit earlier than we thought he was going to, but nevertheless he did. He told me, in any case-- I was very close to him and still am although from afar-- he said, before I leave the ministry here, I'm going to celebrate a gay marriage. Well as we now know, you couldn't do that if you wanted to. Of course, he's not the Pastor anymore, but neither could the current pastor even if he wanted to because it's illegal by state law. Now we could have had, and could still, have a commitment ceremony. But we wouldn't be able to call it a marriage and no clergyman could preside over a marriage in the state of Wisconsin, as everyone knows these days anyway. At least, for the time being. 
SS:	 Did members of your church, did they have commitment ceremonies that involved the pastor? 
LB: 	None was held to my knowledge. If there'd ever been a commitment ceremony presided over by a pastor, same sex, of course, which is what we're talking about. I wasn't aware of it, I don't think we did, but I think I would have known. 
SS: 	So your meetings, how many people would you get at an average meeting? 
LB: 	Oh, it could be as high as 12 or 14 maybe. 
SS:	 And at an average event how many people would you get? 
LB: 	More, because the events, given the examples I used, the PFLAG and the gays in the Holocaust drew larger crowds. I have no idea how many, but much larger than just our group. And our group was sometimes small, and sometimes it was larger. Oh, the other thing we did-- now this is kind of an interesting part of all of this-- I know I'm dwelling on the ministry of the church, but that's part of my upbringing, part of my job so to speak, was all the groups in the church including ours, the Gay and Lesbian Fellowship Group, were asked to host students from the Lutheran Campus Center for brunch once a month. And so we would host-- 
SS: 	In your home, or where? 
LB: 	No, no. At the church. 
SS: 	At the church? 
LB: 	We would make the food, and all the students from the Lutheran Campus Center next door would be invited. Many of whom were associate members of the church, others were just simply students who attended worship at the Lutheran Campus Center, or at Lutheran Memorial, or both. But the reason that came into my head was because the first time we did that I thought, hmm, those students are not going to show up for this brunch because of, who knows what, inherent homophobia or something. Well that turned not to be the case. We sat down and had brunch with the students who were straight as anyone could be. Who, I suppose you could argue they came for the free food, but you could also argue that they weren't rampantly homophobic. They just thought of us as any other group. 
SS: 	How is it, do you think, that these two churches that are sort of right-- 
LB: 	Actually, there were three. 
SS: 	Three churches? 
LB: 	Three that were very, very openly accepting. 
SS: 	Yeah. 
LB: 	Because St. Francis House, the Episcopals, then us, and the University of United Methodist congregation down the street. 
SS:	 And is that the church that Stephen Webster was involved with? 
LB: 	Yes, very involved. Oh, there is something else about church relations that I didn't mention to you before, I don't think, but that I wanted to throw in here because I think it's important, if I can get rid of this cough. And that is that, among my other interests and responsibilities throughout the course of my work with gays and lesbians, was to serve Wisconsin Conference of Churches Task Force on AIDS. And its membership was comprised of member bodies, meaning representatives of, for example, First Baptist Church, which is located right across from my house. And other faith communities, churches in Madison, who are interested in this topic and concerned about doing things not to remedy the situation from the health standpoint. Which reminds me, if no one else has mentioned this, I need to mention the name of one of the first executive directors of the Madison Area AIDS Support Network, Marge Sutinen, who is still around and living and well. Marge was a big driving force for a long time in Madison AIDS Support Network, MASN. And she still is active one way or the other, even though I saw her about a month ago at a social function. I don't recall exactly what she's doing these days, but I'm sure she's still quite active. She always was, and probably always will be. But I think it's important to mention Marge. 
SS: 	We need to interview Marge. 
LB: 	Oh, you haven't? You're going to, I hope? 
SS: 	Yeah. So the name of that network was, again what was it? The AIDS-- 
LB: 	Madison AIDS Support Network, is that what you mean? 
SS: 	The church related one you were talking about. The-- 
LB: 	I must have lost track of what I-- 
SS: 	A statewide-- 
LB:	Oh, the Wisconsin Conference of Churches? 
SS: 	Yes. 
LB: 	It still exists. 
SS: 	And they had a subcommittee on AIDS? 
LB:	 They did. 
SS: 	And that committee was called? 
LB: 	Well, it was called just that. 
SS: 	Just that-- 
LB: 	Yeah, but what was interesting about it was I had not been familiar with the Wisconsin Conference of Churches. What was interesting about it is that I came into contact with a number of different individuals, men and women from different congregations, and to the best of my knowledge I was the only gay member of that subcommittee. There were a lot of members whom I knew and were active, and so on, in their own congregations and then joined that committee, but I think I was the only gay member. 
SS: 	And what kind of things was that subcommittee working on? 
LB: 	We did some programming. I don't want to get too embedded in some of the programming we did, but some of it was very interesting. I wish I could remember the name of the-- I'm thinking of a particular event that we sponsored, and people came to that event from far and wide, actually, within the general Madison Dane county area. And there's another event where we hosted the author of a very, very well known book. Unfortunately, I don't want to go there either because I can't remember the name of it, and I can't remember the name of the author. It was a woman who wrote a book about her son-- maybe it'll come to me, but in any case-- we invited her to talk to a group. which she did. Oh, My Son Eric, was the name of the book she wrote. Unfortunately, I can't think of her name right this minute, but I have it. It's right above your head a little ways in that other room. I can't think of her name right this minute. 
00:58:33
SS: 	So I wonder if there's anything else you want to say about your faith journey, since for so many gay people, trying to reconcile their gayness with the upbringing they've learned in their church is such a painful thing. And many people, rather than trying to work and to reconcile it, oftentimes just leave the church. And I'm wondering if you have ever talked about that journey of yours. 
LB:	 I will talk about that in a little bit. First of all, we shouldn't tippy-toe around the fact that some of the most guilty people in our society have a background in the Roman Catholic Church, as well they should. And not feel guilty, but I mean, not as well they should, but I mean they simply do. Because that particular Christian body-- I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes here but it's pretty widely known-- considers homosexuality to be a sin. And consequently, priests will even speak from the pulpit, as I'm sure you know, against the sin of homosexuality. Even though it can be widely proven outside of the Roman Catholic Church and certain other denominations that the so-called 'proof texts' as we called them, can be disproved easily, biblically, theologically, but not in the Roman Catholic Church. But I'm not answering your question directly, I decided to answer it somewhat indirectly. I was not raised Roman Catholic and never had that kind of guilt. That's my own journey. I never felt guilty, ever. 
01:00:33
SS: 	What do you think accounts for the affirming nature of your church of Madison? 
LB: 	Well I guess I'd have to say I think it has a lot to do with the people. Who they are, what they stand for. Not because they're Lutheran, or anything else for that matter. For example, one of the churches is in our community is the one I mentioned a little while ago, First Baptist, right over here. Very open, affirming. Have been for years. That's an American Baptist church, and I'm sure the people listening to this are not going to fully understand the difference between the American Baptist church and the Southern Baptist church, although it's perfectly clear to me what the difference is. And I'm not talking about theology, but that church has been very, very active, open, affirming. There's another organization besides Reconciling Christ that is actually called An Open and Affirming Congregation, or something. 
SS: 	UCC? 
LB: 	Well, UCC is a member of that body, I think. 
SS:	 It's interesting that a lot of the earliest affirming churches all seem to be centered right around the university, or in that area. Do you get that sense? 
LB: 	Yes, but there are a couple of prominent exceptions. One of them is Lake Edge Lutheran in Winona. And Lake Edge Lutheran had for a long time a pastor who was very, very open and affirming of gay and lesbian people. Another example would be Woody Carey former church, something Presbyterian, but that's not around the university either, it's on the east side somewhere. Neither of these guys is really still pastor of either one of those two churches, those are just examples. 
SS: 	Oh, because Woody was the pastor? 
LB: 	Woody was the pastor, yeah. So was Pastor Voss, I can't think of his first name right now, but both of them have retired. But they both were very open and affirming, and they both pastored very open and affirming congregations. 
SS: 	Do you remember the names of the two women who approached Pastor Harvey Peters with you? 
LB: 	Yes, I do. One of them is still here, she's on the faculty of department psychiatry and is still a member of our church, I believe, although I haven't seen her in years. Her name is Nancy Barklage. And the other one is no longer in Madison, but was Shirley Dawson. And they were the two women that went with Gary Brown and me to see the pastor about Reconciling Christ and other matters. 
01:04:11
LB:	Do you have any other questions you want to ask? Because we're going to have to-- 
SS: 	Wrap it up? 
LB: 	Yeah. Well, not right this minute, but soon. 
SS: 	Yeah, pretty soon. Well maybe I'll just say, Lewis, is there anything that you want to leave us with? I'll give you the last word. 
LB: 	Not really. Well yeah, I do want to add something, because it was something that you suggested to me which I will definitely follow up on. And that is, all of the Rod's materials that you had a chance to look at, both here and on your own, will be given to-- where am I giving them? 
SS: 	The State Historical Society? 
LB: 	The State Historical Society. Now this written material, there are two notebooks and then something which you indicated is already on a website, and I haven't had a chance to look at that website. This will be suggested by you, and I wholeheartedly concur, a welcome gift to the collection at some point in the future. And I can't say exactly when that point will be, but I wanted to make the point that this is part of the history of the gay community in Madison, albeit perhaps only a small part of it, but an interesting collection. I even refreshed my own memory when I dug it out to show you, and I hope that it will be useful to librarians and scholars and the general public at some point in the future. 
SS: 	Well, Lewis, thank you so much. 
LB:	 You're very welcome. 
SS: 	This is Scott Seyforth. I'm speaking with Lewis Bosworth at his home here in Madison. It's Tuesday, April 7, 2009. 
LB: 	Election day. 
SS: 	Election day. I have to go vote yet. 
LB: 	I vote by absentee, so I voted some time ago. 
SS: 	You're done. And again, Lewis, thank you very much. 
LB: 	You're welcome, Scott.