Remembering Bill Silver

Gay Heroes

Early gay activist exposed church’s homophobia

By Tim Gay

Back in the first post-Stonewall decade, there was a whole contingent of nationally operating radical homo ministers who fully expected their faith communities would reach out with love, understanding and acceptance of their queer sisters and brothers—eventually.

Many of them congregated in Chelsea, probably because of the cheap rent back in the 1970s. Bill Johnson of the United Church of Christ (and a former lover of Celluloid Closet author Vito Russo), Al Carmine of Judson Memorial Church; my first lover Michael Collins of the United Methodist Church; and J.W. Canty, an Episcopalian who later wrote a biography on Martha Mitchell, are some who come to mind.

And then there was Bill Silver, a divinity graduate from Union Theological Seminary, who caused a liberal mainstream Protestant denomination to implode over homosexuality.

Bill Silver died of AIDS complications over the Memorial Day weekend at age 59. He was a long-time resident of Chelsea, living at 278 W. 19th St. for more than 30 years.

Among his many talents, Bill was an accomplished gardener, graphic designer and, as Violet, social doyenne of Cherry Grove [Fire Island] since 1991. Bill converted the roof of the five-story walk-up into a lush tropical garden of trees and flowers, which became the scene of many summer night soirees and escapades.

And as a young gay man, Bill was barred from becoming a Presbyterian minister.

In 1975, during an interview for associate pastor at Central Presbyterian Church on Park Avenue, Bill, fresh out of Union Theological Seminary, told the search committee a basic truth about himself: that he was gay.

“It was like electricity had been sent through members of the committee as they sat upright, and we really didn’t know what to do,” said Byron Shafer, a committee member present at that meeting.

Thus began the 30-year Judeo-Christian roller coaster that screeches along today: homophobia-as-political-fodder for fundamentalist, in-the-closet-case-evangelicals; unconditional acceptance, sacraments and marriages for some; and condemnation, excommunication and damnation for many. Even some of those all-embracing Episcopalians would rather align themselves with a homophobic misogynist bishop from South Africa than be affiliated with a gay or lesbian bishop.

Back to 1975. Bill stood his ground. Churches developed sympathy-for-the-devil phrases like “love the sinner, but hate the sin.” Some decided it was okay to ordain homosexuals who didn’t practice and didn’t tell.

But not Bill. Bill emphatically said he was not a “practicing homosexual” but “an accomplished one.”

Bill’s own denomination took three years to make a decision. First, the Park Avenue church punted the question of ordaining a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual” to the national organization. The national church body then set up a task force, which in turn took two years to reach a conclusion that was ratified in 1978, denying ordination for Bill.

That began the next phase of Bill’s life, when I first met him.

In the evolving gay culture of post-Stonewall pre-AIDS, Bill was a unique hippie faerie who was always comfortable with himself and where he was. Bill was not an “A-list Gay,” nor a Saint queen, gym queen or anything else, except being a “queen.” Bill lived in the moment.

On a Saturday night, Bill would start at Marie’s Crisis singing show tunes and by dawn be on the floor boards of The Mineshaft.

He often designed and fabricated his own clothes. One was a lime-green shirt emblazoned with hand-embroidered silhouettes of marijuana leaves.

And he was a gardener. His first lover, Dan Jennings, recalls, “Bill hosted scores of garden parties on his roof for his friends. One party that everyone looked forward to was the annual ‘night blooming cereus party,’ where 20–30 people would come over to watch this plant bloom for one night only.”

Bill was also a “founder” of the Chelsea Garden Club, which met once a year in the Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade. Dan Jennings also recalled, “They all wore overalls and gloves with big green thumbs. Of course, Bill designed and made both the banner and the gloves with the big green thumbs.”

I remember Bill once marched as a giant petunia, giant chiffon petals around his face with a green body suit as the stem and leaves, and brown panty hose trailing behind as roots.

One summer day back in 1985, during Sunday Beer Blast on Christopher Street in front of what is now the Dug Out, Bill and I were looking across the street at the newly opened Bailey House, which was the first residence for people with AIDS in New York City.

Bill commented that it was a pity that there weren’t any plants on the roof. I suggested, “Maybe the Chelsea Garden Club could do some volunteer work there.”

And Bill (and the Chelsea Garden Club) began what may be the City’s (if not the nation’s) first therapeutic gardening project for People with AIDS. Soon the roof and the tree pits were filled with flowers.

And the final phase for Bill was living with AIDS himself. He knew he was HIV positive by the late 1980s and accepted it without remorse or pity. In fact, he always seemed to be in good humor.

In 1991, Dan Jennings and I were living in a small Cherry Grove apartment. We invited Bill to also come out and share the one-bedroom on alternate weekends. We also hoped he would do something with our sun-filled yet empty deck.

Bill not only bedecked our deck with flowers and plants of every kind (including a six-foot marijuana plant) but he cleaned out piles of brush from the dunes behind our house and, with Miracle-Gro and lots of care, created another tropical paradise. I had summered in the share for six years and couldn’t believe the transformation.

That’s also when Bill’s alter ego, Violet, was born. Everything Violet wore was a different shade of purple. Violet invested heavily in purple make-up. Violet hosted her annual “Purple Tea” with purple cookies and cupcakes.

Then Bill and “Violet” founded the Cherry Grove Garden Club, which promotes good gardening throughout the community and organizes an annual garden tour.

For 11 years, Violet published a newsletter called “Violet’s Wild Cherry,” which was a combination of HomoXtra-style listings and Liz Smith-bitchy-gossip solely for the Cherry Grove crowd.

After Bill died, I found out for the first time about his diary.

When Bill was studying at Union Theological Seminary in the early 1970s, his advisor suggested he keep a “coming out” diary. That diary is now at the Yale Archives as part of their lesbian and gay documents.

The diary is a self-examination of his transformation from internalized homophobia to a free being. The diary begins on Oct. 4, 1972: “Two days ago, I looked at myself in the mirror, and, for perhaps the first time, I liked myself. For 25 years—20 or so conscious years—I think I have not liked myself…. I have hated that nameless thing within me—that which made me different from everyone around me. I have pushed it back—repressed, denied, refused to acknowledge what I felt and knew about myself. And I have hated my whole self because of that part.”

However, by Halloween of 1972, Bill was ready to send out “birth announcements” to old friends: “Mr. William David Silver is pleased to announce the birth of himself as a gay person, after 25 years in a ‘womb’ that finally got too small.”

No wonder Bill always liked Hal-loween.