Marriage Equality and Authentic Identity

Today's guest is Meli Barber, who works in the field of family social services in Indianapolis. She holds a Master's of Social Work degree and a Master's of Arts in Theology degree. She shares the story of her marriage to her wife, Carli, and the professional transition out of Catholic parish ministry she had to make to prioritize her relationship. She also reflects on the ways in which her imagination for what her family could be expanded after coming out in college and after marriage equality was federally recognized in the United States.

She shares this resource for LGBTQ+ Catholics and allies:
Dignity USA
https://www.dignityusa.org/

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If you have feedback or want to be a future guest, please get in touch!

Logo design: copyright Darragh Hannan

Transcript

[00:17] Greer: 
Hi, this is Greer, your host for Femammal, the podcast that holds space for women to explore what it means to live well in our bodies and celebrates moving through this world as female mammals. This season, we are listening to women share their stories of how they formed their families, especially when health factors or medical issues impacted their decisions. Women's health matters for its own sake. At the same time, for many women, health issues not only impact their own quality of life, but also their paths to forming families. And many women have wanted to share those stories here, too. For our purposes, forming families means the creation of any home life that generates safety, belonging, connection, and joy. And it doesn't exclusively mean becoming a parent and raising children. I hope you will listen to each story this season with a sense of curiosity and compassion. And if you're going through something in your life right now where you're not in a place to listen to stories like these, I hope that you find compassion and support for what you're going through, and you can return to this podcast when you're ready. Today's guest is Meli Barber. Meli works in the field of family social services in Indianapolis. She holds both a master's in social work degree and a master's of theology degree. In this conversation, she reflects on her marriage to her wife, Carli, and the professional transition out of catholic parish ministry she had to make as a result of her relationship. Her imagination for what her family could look like expanded after coming out in college and after marriage equality was federally recognized in the United States.

[02:35] Greer: 
Welcome, Meli, I'm so glad you're able to join us for this conversation and grateful for you sharing your story today. I was wondering if you could start by telling us a little bit about your family and how you met your wife.

[02:48] Meli: 
Yeah, so my wife and I have been together for eleven years. Ten years. Ten or eleven years. I can't remember now. I think it'll be eleven this year. We met in the backyard of the Catholic Worker community in Indianapolis. She had come for community dinner. I was living at the Worker at the time. She came an hour late, but she did bring a cheesecake. So she walked in with a cheesecake and walked out with my phone number.

[03:17] Greer: 
That's amazing. And the Catholic Worker being an intentional community that you were living in at the time?

[03:23] Meli: 
Yes, an intentional community where we lived. An intentional community with people who had been experiencing homelessness.

[03:30] Greer: 
She walked out with your number. Did you have that kind of sense of a spark right then and there, or was it a little bit more pedestrian than that?

[03:39] Meli: 
Well, I really liked her. But the thing that's complicated when you are a lesbian is when you go on a date, it's not always clear whether something is a date or not. So I really liked this girl, but I wasn't sure if she got my number to be a friend or because she liked me. And even the first time we went out on a date together, I wasn't sure it was a date until we both got there.

[04:02] Greer: 
And what was your tip off when you both got there? That you're like, yeah, we're on.

[04:07] Meli: 
I mean, I had spent a lot of time getting dressed up and ready, and when I got there and she came in and she clearly had spent a lot of time getting ready as well, it's like, oh, I think we're on the same page.

[04:19] Greer: 
Okay. That must have been so exciting.

[04:23] Meli: 
Yeah.

[04:25] Greer: 
And so your family is your wife?

[04:29] Meli: 
Yeah, and my wife and I live with a friend who we consider to be our brother. So our little family unit is my wife and I, our brother, two cats that we adopted out of parking lots and then a dog that we're fostering.

[04:44] Greer: 
That's really beautiful. Thinking back to when you were younger, did you ever imagine the family life you have now?

[04:52] Meli: 
I did not. I came out pretty late. I was in college, in my junior at Notre Dame when I came out and, you know, been in Catholic schools my entire life and just didn't know anyone until I got to college that was gay. I'm sure that I knew people who were gay, but they weren't out at the time. Right. Like, I didn't know that. And so I felt like I didn't even have a language to think about what my own identity was. So I didn't have an imagination for what my family could look like other than kind of the typical heterosexual two kids, white picket fence picture that you get in CCD class on Sundays.

[05:34] Greer: 
Did you have some kind of internal reaction to that picture that ever signaled to you, like, maybe that wasn't going to be your thing?

[05:44] Meli: 
I think that there was not the same sort of enthusiasm or kind of feeling like that was really meant for me. But again, I didn't really have the vocabulary to figure out or think through what that actually meant. It was just what we do when we're Catholic. We go to Sunday school, we go to Catholic high school. We date people of the opposite sex. We get married and have kids young.

[06:13] Greer: 
Right.

[06:13] Meli: 
I'm a midwestern Catholic, so that was sort of the only vision that I had for my future, was being a young wife and mother.

[06:22] Greer: 
Yeah. And that's certainly the cultural context I came from. I'm curious what helped you expand your vocabulary and expand your imagination as you got into college and beyond?

[06:35] Meli: 
Yeah, one of the first people that I met in college was from New England and just much more progressive than the Midwest. My wife is actually from New England. And you know, when we got married, I felt like I was among the last of my friends to get married, and she was the first of her friends to get married. Just the cultural difference in, I think, the way that midwesterners, southerners, and then kind of New England people think about marriage and family is really different. Anyway, you know, she was one of the first people that I met, and she had been out for several years, and I was like, what is this? What is happening? Tell me more. Tell me more. And I think just getting to know her a little bit better and listening to kind of some of her story and feeling like parts of her story were really resonant with me in ways that I wasn't ready to acknowledge at the time kind of started to crack open that imagination. And like I said, I finally came out the fall of my junior year, so about two years after I met her.

[07:38] Greer: 
Yeah. Your nod to kind of cultural differences made me realize when you made the comment that you considered coming out in college to be late, even that is sort of a cultural difference between generations. I feel like in our generation and even generations ahead of us, that wasn't late. That was right on time.

[07:59] Meli: 
We weren't early. Right, right.

[08:02] Greer: 
Yeah. I mean, we were not openly talking about sexuality in high school or even younger, as maybe the younger generations are more comfortable doing now.

[08:11] Meli: 
Yeah, I work in child welfare now, and so I'm surrounded by kids constantly, and the number of kids that have come out in high school or middle school or grade school, it's like, oh, my gosh, I had no idea. Looking back on it now, it's like, oh, I can see going through my journals or thinking about my life, I can see kind of hints, clues that I didn't see in myself. But our kids these days are so in tune with their sexual orientation and their gender identity.

[08:41] Greer: 
Yeah, it's really interesting. And when you first came out, did that immediately give you thoughts about what your family life might look like, or were you not, like, had your imagination not expanded there yet?

[08:59] Meli: 
I don't think that I knew what that could or would look like. I was really involved in campus ministry initiatives at, you know, there are ways that I think coming out at Notre Dame was such a blessing for me because the friend group that I had, who was also very involved in campus ministry, just accepted me right away. And so kind of right away, I always felt like there was a way to make these two things work together, like that being gay and being Catholic were two things that could peacefully coexist, even though I didn't know exactly how they could coexist. So I didn't know exactly what family might look like--I mean, this was certainly before marriage equality--didn't know what family might look like in the future. But I had a sense that there was a way to figure it out, that these two identities were not incongruent. I'm really thankful for the friends and community I was surrounded by, because I don't know that I would have had so much certainty of that if I hadn't been so accepted so quickly just by the community I was surrounded by.

[10:09] Greer: 
That's really heartening to hear. I'm wondering, is there anything you wish you could tell your younger self about the kind of home you were going to create?

[10:19] Meli: 
I think that it was going to be hard to get here, but that it was going to happen, right. That I would have a beautiful family, even though it took some pain and some heartache to get there. But it did all work out, right? That I was right. There is a way to make these identities work together. And I did find the path.

[10:41] Greer: 
Yeah. That path wasn't easy. And I know that pursuing your relationship with your wife had pretty significant professional implications for you. Could you delve into that a little bit by describing your professional situation and then why that complicated things and how you discerned what was the right time to make the shift, to prioritize your relationship?

[11:05] Meli: 
Yeah. So when I finished school at Notre Dame, I did a graduate program in Notre Dame where I pursued a master's in theology, and I worked as a parish catechetical leader. And then when I finished that master's degree, I stayed in ministry. So when I met my wife, I was working as a director of religious education and youth ministry for a small parish in my neighborhood. Actually, the church and the Catholic Worker community where I was living were on the exact same street. So I would walk the two blocks up the street every morning to go to work. And I loved that job. I've always felt a deep call to ministry. I think I was really good at that job, and I loved spending time with our young people. I loved working with our catechists. I was working with RCIA. Just all these different faith based initiatives that I really, really loved. And I also knew that if I was going to be out in any public way or be in any kind of public relationship, that would end my career. Sort of a long story, but when I first moved to Indianapolis with this graduate program, I was also living in an intentional community that was created by the University. So we were sent to particular cities, we lived in community together. And one of the women that I was living with at the time actually called the Office of Catholic Education and outed me because she was, and I quote, "concerned for my chastity." So very quickly, I had some professional challenges. And you know, at the time, I wasn't dating anyone. I was doing exactly what the Church would ask me to do. But it was still a really big deal. There's a lot of discussion back and forth between the Archdiocese and the University of whether I would be allowed to stay at my position, whether I'd be allowed to stay in the Archdiocese. And eventually they agreed that I could stay. So I finished the program and actually lived with that woman for two full years after she outed me. 

Greer: 
Wow. 

Meli: 
Which is one of the most difficult things I've done in my adult life. And I used to say that that experience taught me to discern safe spaces, but it actually just taught me to be afraid. And so for years after that, I was absolutely in a no dating space. I wouldn't even allow myself to consider what it would look like to date because I was so afraid of losing my job. And I did love that job. I loved ministry. I wasn't ready to leave at that point. So when Carli marched into my backyard with a cheesecake, I'm not sure what happened where I lost my mind and gave her my phone number. But she was special. She is special. I don't know what it was about it, but when she asked for my number, I just immediately gave it to her.

[14:12] Greer: 
It sounds like she, as a person, felt like a safe space.

[14:16] Meli: 
Yeah. I don't know, she's one of those people that just lights up a room when you enter it. She's just so authentic and so genuine and so vibrant. You can't help but be attracted to her. So, yeah, we exchanged phone numbers and we got coffee a few times. And what we now refer to as predates, things that were, like, not exactly dates, but were sort of leading to a date. And then a couple of months after that, we went out to get drinks for our very first date. Like I said, I wasn't even sure it was a date. When we went out, I'd gotten all dressed up, and I was kind of trying to get out of the house unnoticed when some of the other people in the community were like, where are you going?

[15:02] Greer: 
Looking so good!

[15:06] Meli: 
And I was forced to confess that I thought perhaps I had a date but wasn't sure. I mean, the rest was pretty much history from the moment we had our first date. I saw or talked to Carli every single day of my life since then. We had our second date just a couple of days later. We were texting constantly. She was actually in Indianapolis on a temporary but indefinite work assignment. So she'd been in Indy for a couple months. And then about six weeks after we started dating, she was very abruptly told she was moving to Seattle. And like crazy people, we decided we weren't ready to be done with whatever we were doing. So six weeks into our relationship, we ended up long distance. Like living thousands of miles apart, talking on the phone for hours a day, spending a small fortune on a church worker's salary to fly back and forth to Seattle a couple of times a month. And a few months after that, she quit her job and moved to Indianapolis so that we could have a home together.

[16:14] Greer: 
Wow. So, I mean, really, there were big professional shifts for both of you to make this happen together?

[16:20] Meli: 
Yeah. I did not quit my job right away. We dated somewhat surreptitiously for about two years before I left. I think part of me wanted to walk out, like, the second that I met her because there was something about her that made me feel very certain. But the counsel of some friends and mentors, like, maybe you should try dating here for more than a handful of days before you blow up your professional life. So she was very patient with me as we were trying to figure out what the next step would look like. You know I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in Catholic theology. And as it turns out, when you can't work for the Catholic Church, that degree does not have a lot of utility. So figuring out what else I could do or what my next step would be took some time. So the second year that we dated, I spent that entire year doing prerequisite classes and studying for the GRE so that I could apply for a master's in social work program. And I left my position as a youth minister to go back to school full time and pursue an MSW.

[17:33] Greer: 
I'm curious if you shared the backstory of your relationship with your former employers on your way out at all, or did you just leave it on the level of, oh, I'm leaving to go to graduate school?

[17:51] Meli: 
So the priest that I worked for, I'm actually still really close with him. And I think that he had known who Carli was for some period of time. But the gift of plausible deniability was a gift I tried to give him. So I never said anything to him about my relationship until after I was off of his payroll. But I'm certain that he knew who Carli was for some time. We continued to attend church at that parish where I had worked. Eventually, some parishioners, I don't know who, but someone complained to the priest, and he told me I could no longer volunteer anymore because there had been so many complaints about us attending church together. So we don't attend that parish anymore. But that priest has always been very personally supportive of me and of my relationship.

[18:44] Greer: 
That just sounds so painful, because it sounds like you handled the entire situation in the most gracious way possible. And I'm just seeing so many dynamics of people who have been personally accepting and supportive of you. But then maybe, like other institutional complications.

[19:11] Meli: 
I think that's exactly right. I mean, so many individual people have been supportive of me, and yet, as an institution, the Catholic Church just can't get behind my relationship just yet. But when we actually got married, I had told this priest that it was happening, and I don't even remember telling him the date, but I must have, because the day after the wedding, he called me to congratulate me. He was very intentional about acknowledging the change in my relationship. Like I said, I've always felt very supported by him. He's been to our house for dinner. He really likes my wife. He'll refer to her as my wife, but I think he's between a rock and a hard place. Although not being allowed to continue volunteering was, again, one of the more painful experiences of my life. I wasn't upset with him, I was just upset at the situation. Like I said, I think he had limited options working in that institution as well.

[20:18] Greer: 
Yeah, I mean, it's really striking me that it's difficult, not just for yourself, but really for anyone who wants to be supportive of you or shares kind of your viewpoint on some of these issues. It just becomes really difficult from that kind of institutional perspective.

[20:42] Meli: 
Yeah.

[20:44] Greer: 
So you talked about your marriage, your wedding, a little bit. How did you discern how to celebrate your marriage and what was important to you about that celebration, especially in a context where your own church wasn't going to affirm or support you entering into that marriage?

[21:01] Meli: 
Yeah. So my wife was raised kind of generic Protestant. Her family landed at the Methodist church, but she actually became Episcopalian at the personal invitation of Bishop Gene Robinson, which is its own amazing story. You know, Episcopalians, Catholics are similar-ish in some of their traditions. So we were married in the Episcopal Church. I knew a church wedding was really important to me, and as a former church worker, I had a lot of strong opinions about liturgy, which Carli, very graciously, basically allowed me to plan the entire liturgy. She got more control of the reception, but I got to pick the readings and the music and really design the liturgy to be the way that I wanted. We, thankfully had a mutual friend, she and I had both met Father Charles, an Episcopal priest, kind of independent of each other and had a good relationship with him. So he officiated our wedding and helped us to secure an Episcopal church. Because we were going to the Catholic church, we weren't registered in an Episcopalian church anywhere. So we actually had some difficulty locating a church that would allow us to have our wedding there. But this priest helped us to do that, so we are very grateful for him. 

[22:22] Greer: 
Sure. Has that Episcopalian tradition become part of your family's tradition since then?

[22:28] Meli: 
Not really. I mean, we occasionally go to the Episcopal church, but we have a Dignity chapter in Indianapolis. Dignity is the oldest LGBT+ Catholic advocacy network in the world. We were founded in 1969. We actually predate Stonewall by a couple of months. And I serve as our national president of Dignity USA. So we're really involved in our Indianapolis chapter. So we largely worship with the Dignity community.

[22:58] Greer: 
Oh, wow.

[22:59] Meli: 
Yeah.

[22:59] Greer: 
I wasn't familiar with that. That's really neat. I'm wondering, did people in your life ever suggest to you that you should try dating men? Or, like, after you came out, sort of wanted you to maybe perform a heterosexual life or relationship instead? And if those kind of suggestions were made to you by people, what do you wish people understood before they try to push ideas like that?

[23:29] Meli: 
So that actually never happened to me. And I think it was likely because I did come out again for our generation, probably right on time, but at this point, it feels like it was a little late, given how early people come out. By the time I came out, I had spent years dating men. So it wasn't that I had never tried that. So mercifully, no one suggested that perhaps I was wrong and should just try again. 

[23:56] Greer: 
Yeah. Okay. Good to hear that. What are some of the ways that you see your marriage bearing fruit, both for yourselves and for your community?

[24:06] Meli: 
Just in our own, my, you know, marriage with Carli, she makes me a better person. She's an incredible sounding board to bounce ideas off of. She's so supportive of me. She sees me in a way that I don't see myself, and she pushes me to do better and to be better. She supported me going back to school. I supported her through some different career changes. At this point, we've walked through different periods of time where only one of us was employed, and we were trying to figure out how to make our budgets balance. We bought a house together. We have these adopted animals that we take care of. I just think that our life together is so much greater than if we were single or living alone. And then I think as a family unit, we have really tried to be people that are outward facing, which isn't to say that we don't spend time just together in our family unit, but we also really try to focus on facing towards the world and trying to do good together. We still are very active with our Catholic Worker community, so we are housing some unstably housed individuals right now over there. My wife does work with labor unions, and so her job is service-oriented. I'm in the child welfare field, so we really try to together support each other to really make a difference and an impact in our communities.

[25:45] Greer: 
Yeah, I really hear that. So if it's not prying, what factors might impact whether or how you might be thinking about growing your family beyond what your family is now?

[25:59] Meli: 
We definitely want to grow our family, and I really appreciate that you said "grow" and not "start," because we do have a family. We live with our brother, we live with our cats, we live with our dog, but we would also like to grow our family. We hope to add a tiny human. So there's a couple things that we're looking at. Carli's very interested in being pregnant, so we're kind of working on what it would look like, how that could potentially happen since we can't accidentally get pregnant. They're just factors we have to figure out. And then, because I work in child welfare, I'm really familiar with the foster care system. So we're also very interested in becoming foster parents and perhaps adopting through foster care if that comes to pass. But we're also very supportive of reunification. And I think the real call of foster care is to be people who can stand in the gap and love children and support children and get children home. And so that's something that we also are very interested in as well.

[27:06] Greer: 
Wow. I really love your openness and kind of all the viewpoints that you take to that. Is there anything that sort of structures your discernment together about that or how you move through moving towards one of those options.

[27:27] Meli: 
Yeah, I think just because of our age, we're both in our later 30s. I think if we're going to have a baby, we have to work on that first. I do think that we'll ultimately end up fostering, but I'm really aware of the dynamic that can be created if you have a foster child in your home and then you're also trying to become pregnant and just how that child might feel or what they might feel their role in the home is if a couple is very enthusiastic and excited about having a biological child being born. So I think that we want to try to exhaust the possibility of having a biological child first and then look at opening our home to foster just so we're not creating any unwanted dynamics.

[28:18] Greer: 
Yeah, that sounds really wise and self-aware. And I don't know how many people would have thought through that dynamic if they weren't as familiar with that whole system as you are. So I appreciate you sharing that.

[28:32] Meli: 
Yeah.

[28:35] Greer: 
I'm wondering both about what's been hard about the path you've taken to living your life authentically and forming your family, and also what's been joyful and what you celebrate about where you are. 

Meli: 
I think we've touched on some of the more painful parts. I love my church. I loved my work in ministry. And so the various moments where I've had to give that up, walk away from that, be asked to stop volunteering, not be accepted by particular individuals, is always challenging. Right? There's pain in all of those goodbyes and all of those closed doors. And I think that the joy is so much of just the life that Carli and I have made. You know, having our family, it's all the small things about doing life right. It's making dinner after, you know, going to see a musical, it's going to a concert, it's taking a walk in our neighborhood. It's the relationships that we've made together, the friends that we have together. I don't know that I could pinpoint a specific thing, except that life with my life is joy. Just the daily, even mundane tasks that we do together are somehow better because we do them together.

[30:08] Greer: 
Yeah, that's really well said. That definitely resonates for me. I just have one last question. Do you have an insight you could share with us into how we as women can listen well to our bodies and our hearts as we move through making these family formation choices in our lives?

[30:28] Meli: 
I don't know that I have a great answer for this, except that we just have to find the space to be with ourselves. And to listen to ourselves. I think as women, especially as Catholic women or women connected with the church, there's so many men that talk over us. And so I think the most important thing is to just take time and space to just be with ourselves and to listen to ourselves and not just listen to the male voices with collars speaking during church.

[31:08] Greer: 
Thank you. I really appreciate everything that you've shared today and congratulations to you and your wife on your marriage and everything that you're doing in your family.

[31:20] Meli: 
Thank you. It was lovely to speak with you as well.

[31:29] Greer: 
You if today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at femammalpodcast@gmail.com that's femammalpodcast@gmail.com you can also follow this podcast on Facebook. Just search for Femammal Podcast and you will find a community of people who are interested in living well in our bodies. And of course, I'd love for you to rate this podcast and leave a review wherever you download your podcasts. Until next time, be well.