Rev. Raymond Charles Broshears

Raymond Charles Broshears, who burst into the San Francisco gay scene as “Reverend Ray” in 1965, was born Earl Raymond Allen on February 14, 1935, in Centreville, Illinois.  His mother married William Broshears when he was three years old, but the couple soon thereafter left Earl to be raised by his grandmother and three aunts.  Religion was a solace in Broshears’ early life. He was teaching Bible lessons at Midway Baptist Mission Church at age 14 and, a year later, became the Sunday School superintendent.  His grandmother encouraged him to become a minister.  He dropped out of school at age sixteen to help support his family, working as a hospital orderly.  At age 19, he enlisted in the Navy, serving as a medical corpsman, but was discharged in 1955 for medical reasons. The details remain unclear, but Broshears had a significant head injury which may have been part of a sexual assault.  He received treatments in different veterans’ hospitals in the 1950s and 1960s, and reports from extensive files the FBI collected about Broshears indicate he had mental health issues.  His passions seemed to vacillate widely, ranging from supporting segregationist George Wallace’s political campaign to enlisting in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).  In 1965, he participated in a sit-in demonstration against racial discrimination in Belleville, Illinois. Following the demonstration Broshears was arrested by the police for allegedly groping a seventeen-year-old boy and served six months in the county jail.  It has been reported that the boy was the nephew of the town’s mayor.  Broshears’ account is that the incident was a minor infraction involving touching each other fully clothed. He felt deeply wronged by the police and the jail sentence and, upon his release, changed his name and moved to San Francisco, never again to return to the Midwest.

Broshears arrived in the gay mecca of San Francisco just before Christmas 1965 and moved into a low-rent studio apartment on Turk Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood.  He set about to develop a new life—a ministry—for himself that would reconcile his faith with his gay identity--as Reverend Ray.   He dressed in black with a clerical collar.  He visited different churches and religious groups in the community.  A pastor at Glide Memorial Church, Laird Sutton, suggested to Ray that he begin his own street ministry.   Ray attended some meetings of Vanguard, the gay youth group that met at Glide in 1966 and 1967.  Vanguard leader Adrian Ravarour reported that Ray stopped attending because he was not invited into the group’s leadership.  Broshears got to know Bishop Michael Francis Augustine Itkin of the Eucharistic Catholic Church who ordained him in 1967.  Reverend Ray organized and eventually incorporated his own church, the Orthodox Episcopal Church of God.  He rented a hall to lead a simple Sunday service.

In the late 1960s, Broshears was quite visible on the streets of the Tenderloin which was populated largely by runaways, street kids, drug users and sex workers.  Ray carried a fat wallet which was filled with business cards and notes on different social services.  When he encountered someone who appeared to be in need, he would strike up a conversation, asking them about their life and what kind of assistance they needed.  Then he would pull a helpful phone number or address from his wallet and pass that on to the person. He visited the local bars and businesses and invited contributions toward his ministry.  He largely scraped by on a meager Navy pension. By 1972, he was able to open the Helping Hands Center in a small storefront to offer legal assistance and social services to persons in need.  

In June 1972, Broshears helped organize the first Pride parade in San Francisco in which about 15,000 persons participated. The festive celebration was marred by an incident involving Broshears and a lesbian contingent from San Jose.  As the parade was setting up Broshears noticed the group carried a sign that said “Off Prick Power.” He confronted them telling them it was obscene and allegedly tore up the sign.  Later on, the group of women challenged Broshears for his abrasive behavior and a near-brawl broke out.  Other parade organizers chastised Broshears for his actions and he was not allowed to participate in the parade the following year.

Broshears was politically involved in the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in his early San Francisco years.  However, he grew disgruntled because he perceived that these groups adhered a more leftist agenda, unwilling to hear more conversative views or invite more conservative candidates to their forums.  In 1971, he left GAA and started the Gay Voters League which he claimed to be nonpartisan.  He built connections with Republican officials in California leading him to found the Teddy Roosevelt Republican Club in 1977.  Believed to be the first gay Republican club in the U.S., its initial press release stated that it had 25 members and its purpose was “to lobby Republican legislators to share their attitudes toward gay rights.”

One of Broshears’ passions was to confront police harassment and violence toward LGBTQ persons which was rampant in San Francisco in the 1960s.  Building on his anger about his imprisonment in Illinois, Broshears regularly chastised city and police officials for lack of protection in the monthly Gay Crusader which he published from his apartment.  In his encounters with street workers, runaway youth and other residents of the Tenderloin he saw evidence of and heard stories about the violence they experienced at the hands of policemen as well as civilians.  Then on the evening of July 4, 1973, Broshears walked out of the Helping Hand Center and was badly beaten by a group of youth.  It is reported that they were shooting off fireworks earlier in the day and Broshears had reported them to the police, so they were seeking revenge.  

As he was recuperating in the hospital, Broshears’ outrage grew.  On July 6, he called reporters to his community center and, brandishing a shotgun, he announced the formation of the Lavender Panthers.  He stated that gays and lesbians would no longer tolerate the violence brought upon them, but would now fight back.  The image of a gun-toting pastor leading a band of LGBTQ vigilantes received widespread media coverage locally and nationally.  In a Time magazine interview Broshears stated that LGBTQ people didn’t trust the cops, so they didn’t call the police when they were assaulted. In his view, victims of anti-gay violence believed “police are likely to accuse them of having invited the beating by propositioning someone.” Broshears recruited others in his Tenderloin circles to patrol the streets at night, carrying sawed-off pool cues, whistles, chains and clubs. He also listed a hotline that victims of violence could call.

Broshears’ actions brought a swift rebuttal from other LGBTQ leaders in San Francisco.  In a televised press conference Frank Fitch, spokesperson for SIR, stated that: “The Reverend Ray Broshears does not represent the gay community…While we recognize that there does exist a climate of hate, fear and ignorance against gay people in this country, and that that climate often results in violent acts perpetrated against us, we feel that the use of violence to respond to violence solves nothing.”

There were several ensuing incidents in which Lavender Panther patrols fought off anti-gay harassment In the spring of 1974, some Lavender Panthers beat up several teenagers who had accosted a bartender at a gay bar. The parents of the youth filed complaints with the police and Broshears was ordered to disband the group.  While the tenure of the vigilante group was short-lived, it brought Broshears the media attention that he seemed to regularly seek.     

Broshears’ mental and physical health began to decline.  He had antagonized so many LGBTQ and community leaders with his moral outrage and bull-headed behavior, that he found himself increasingly marginalized and ignored everywhere but in his Tenderloin community. His actions became even more erratic as he filed complaints with police about gay bars, filed frivolous lawsuits and lashed out at persons would not purchase advertisements in his Gay Crusader.  In January 1982, Broshears suffered a cerebral stroke in his apartment and died, one month shy of his 47th birthday.

On January 14, 1982, the Bay Area Reporter printed a two-page obituary for Broshears.  It included quotes from a number of LGBTQ community members in which Broshears was both praised for his compassionate ministries and criticized him for his outrageous, self-serving actions.   

(This biographical statement written by Mark Bowman from information provided in the sources below as well as correspondence from Adrian Ravarour.)

Biography Date: June 2024

“I was one of Rev. Ray Broshears' first seminarians in his 1967 religious survey course for committed couples, along with my mate Mark Miller Papalonis.  Rev Ray Broshears attended Vanguard meetings in May 1966 when I was retiring after serving a year as Vanguard's leader. Ray came in response to Vanguard's advertisement to select a new leader. Ray believed that he would be the perfect leader for Vanguard "because he was gay, the membership was gay, Vanguard met at a church, and he was a minister." He insisted that it was an ideal match. However, the membership sought a younger leader, so Ray left and did not reconnect to Vanguard until 1967 when he proved his worth by offering job counciling to any of the poor Vanguard members.  In April 1967, Michael Itkin consecrated Rev Raymond Charles Broshears as a Bishop in Itkin's Autocephelous Catholic Church that caused Ray to reexamine his ministry realizing that bishops oversee pastors. Consequently, Ray decided to initiate what amounted to a religious survey course for committed gay couples whom he hoped would start gay churches. My mate, Mark Miller Papalonis, insisted that we become seminarians. We did. Our rudimentary religious survey studies merely lasted seven months, April-October 1967, after which we were ordained as ministers in Ray's Orthodox Episcopal Church of God. We were the first couple to complete his gay seminary program, followed by many other seminarians. Then Mark and I moved to Monterey where we focused upon spiritual arts. Reverend Ray continued to develop Open Hand and other services for gay people.  I had already been ordained in other religious ministries, and sometimes had different perspectives. But Ray truly was a Christian who believed in God, the ministry of Christ Jesus, and he wanted to assist gays and others. Sometimes he seemed gruff and overbearing, but I witnessed him assist the poor and desperate time and time again without preaching or seeking any gain. Ray sincerely believed that ministry was to assist one another in service, and he believed in a Last Judgment where God will see the good that is achieved.”
 – as remembered by Adrian Ravarour on July 4, 2024

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