Father Tom Oddo and Pride | Gallery
Happy Pride, y’all! Time for a little history lesson…
From the first years after his ordination in 1970 to the last year of his presidency at @uportland in 1989, Father Tom Oddo #csc fought the good fight to advance the rights of gay Catholics and LGBTQ+ people nationwide. Here are just a few of the things Tom did that deserve notice this month:
-Co-founding @dignityboston with Paul Diederich, with whom he would carry on a long-term relationship. Both were featured in a 1974 photograph in the @nytimes from the NYC Pride parade route.
-Testifying to lawmakers in Boston on anti-discrimination bills destined to fail. He was joined in this crusade by a boisterous young representative named Barney Frank.
-Co-founding @dignityusa with delegates from a dozen other states, serving as the first National Secretary (with Paul Diederich as its first President) from 1973-1977.
-Helping elect friend and fellow activist Elaine Noble, an openly lesbian woman, to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1974—the first openly gay person elected to a US state legislature.
-Protesting the censoring of @dignity_detroit founder and Michigan Catholic columnist @brian.mcnaught by the Detroit Archdiocese.
-Getting elected to the Gay Rights National Lobby, speaking at the National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, and working with Rev. Troy Perry and others on strategizing partnerships with the Carter White House.
-Interviewing for, and starring in, the WNAC-TV documentary “All God’s Children?” when such an appearance in local media was risky at best.
-Once at UP, launching a series of panel-based events on AIDS and publishing a pamphlet on the virus to dispel myths and misinformation among the campus population.
There’s a lot to admire in Tom’s work from his tenacious drive to his embrace of radical love and self-love. To the end he was steadfast, once saying “We won’t wait for the institutional church to catch up in its theology to where the people are. We will assist the church by going and doing it.” That, to me, is the spirit of pride: we’re here, we’re proud, and we’re not waiting for you to catch up ❤️
Select an image to see the full size.
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- 1973: Tom is featured in Kay Longcope's Boston Globe story on Dignity just prior to his election to be the newly-organized DignityUSA's first National Secretary.
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- 1974: Tom addresses the fourth annual Gay Rites of Spring event at University of Massachusetts
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- 1974: Tom supports Elaine Noble in her historic run for the Massachusetts State House (story originally from WomanSpace magazine, 1992)
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- Tom at NYC Pride with Paul - 1974: Tom, Paul Diederich and others in the Dignity fold took to the NYC Pride parade route in June 1974. This picture would end up on the July 1 issue of New York Times.
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- 1975: Tom helps coordinate a protest against the censoring of a gay Michigan Catholic columnist--and co-founder of Dignity/Detroit--Brian McNaught.
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- 1975: A crowd of over 100 protestors march through Detroit in support of Brian McNaught.
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- 1976: Tom is elected to the Gay Rights National Lobby, a new organization developed to advocate for the civil and legal rights of gay people across the US.
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- 1976: Tom helped to organize multiple workshops and conferences during his tenure as DignityUSA's National Secretary (1973-77), including this one in San Diego, the birthplace of the original Dignity support group.
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- 1976: Tom attends a social event following the San Diego conference.
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- 1977: Tom ends his DignityUSA board tenure as a subject-matter expert on gay issues in a Catholic context, even cited by his employer Stonehill College for his activism.
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- 1981: Tom is interviewed for and featured heavily in a local news program on gay Christians, WNAC-TV's "All God's Children?" The title card is pulled from footage of Dignity/Boston's 1981 Ash Wednesday service.
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- cir. 1983: By now, Tom is busy with the day-to-day tasks of the university presidency, but still finds time to attend the 1983 DignityUSA conference in Vancouver B.C.s
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- 1986: UP hosts the first of several forums on AIDS, with panel participants from Campus Ministry, the University Health Center, and Jim Christopher--a Portland man living openly with the disease. Tom emceed the event, as he almost always did with HIV/AIDS-related programming on the Bluff.
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- cir. 1986: Tom quickly learned how to delegate and refrain from micromanagement as university president, but he never lost sight of the human element of his campus. To the end, he loved all people (and it showed).
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- 1987: UP publishes a pamphlet on AIDS, dispelling myths and misinformation about the disease. The final draft is approved by Tom himself.
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- cir. 1987: Though he started his tenure as president with little experience and a naive youthfulness, Tom grew into the role and subsequently built an academic cabinet whose energy was described as "shocking" by The Log, UP's student yearbook.
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- 1989: The last event UP hosted on AIDS prior to Tom's tragic death in an October car accident. The university would continue its dialogue on the disease through the 90s, maintaining an empathetic and supportive tone for HIV+ students.
