User:Wbarter/sandbox



William Martin Barter, M.Div., Ph.D.

Three-quarter-time Pastor of St. Ansgar Lutheran Church (ELCA), Portland, Maine

One-quarter-time forensic psychologist and professor of forensic psychology. Lives in Brunswick, Maine. Marital status: Widowed. AKA: Pastor Bill Barter, Dr. Bill Barter, Pastor Bill, Pastor William Barter. Born: April 28, 1956 in Bath, Maine. Dr. William Barter was born to Reginald "Pete" Barter and Cynthia Louise (Dauphin) Barter. He has a twin brother, Michael. After he was born, the family lived in Arrowsic, Maine and then Bath, Maine. The family moved to Portland, Maine when Bill was in middle school. Bill’s sister, Judith, was born in 1965. Dr. Barter's father was Methodist and his mother was Roman Catholic (his father later became Catholic). Barter was raised Catholic and attended Catholic Schools. He was an altar boy (Latin Mass and then English). His family was very active in church life. Barter graduated from Cheverus High School, a Jesuit school in Portland, in 1974. He graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 1978 with a B.A. in English. After college, Barter attended seminary at Theological College, a school at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He obtained his Master of Divinity in 1982. After a year as a transitional deacon working in campus ministry at Catholic University, Barter was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 5, 1982 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine.

Catholic assignments as a priest:


 * 1982-1985: Catholic chaplain, Bates College and part-time parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s, Lewiston, Maine.
 * 1985-1988: Associate Director of Youth Ministry for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine.
 * 1988-1992: Pastor, St. Joseph’s, Wallagrass Maine, Holy Family, Daigle, Maine. (Each church also had a mission, Sacred Heart in Soldier Pond and St. Euthrope in Guerrette respectively.)

On New Year’s Day 1992, Barter left the Roman Catholic Church. His three chief reasons for leaving were the issue of women’s ordination; mishandling of sex abuse cases; and his own process of coming out as a gay man. Barter lived in Carrabassett Valley Maine for all of 1992 while he completed a child abuse prevention project for the Franklin County Children’s Task Force in Farmington, Maine. He then moved back to Portland where he met his partner, Bill Taormino. They became lifelong partners in the fall of 1993. In 1993, Bill obtained his clinical counseling license and became clinical director of the Street Program, a day center and mental health outpatient center for homeless youth. Taormino was diagnosed with AIDS in October 1993 and died in July 1995. When Taormino became sick, money became tight, and Barter looked for part-time work. He landed a position as “interim” music director at St. Ansgar Lutheran Church in Portland. He found at St. Ansgar a welcoming and affirming church. In 1995, Barter made his profession of faith to become a Lutheran in the ELCA. In 1996, one year after Bill Taormino’s death, Barter moved to Chicago with a friend to begin his Ph.D. in Psychology at Walden University. While in Chicago, Barter worked as a personal fitness trainer and aerobics instructor, as well as a regional manager for a chain of health clubs in downtown Chicago. While in Chicago, Barter took a music position at United in Christ Lutheran Church. It was a black church on the near west side of Chicago. Barter’s pastor, Michelle Robinson, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and it was then that Barter was asked to occasionally fill in for her on Sundays. (He had not been in a pulpit or at an altar for about six years.)  Barter’s father died of heart disease in 1998. It was in that year that Barter met Frank Smith. (Barter and Smith separated in early 2009.) Barter returned to Maine in 2000 to care for his mother and to eventually become her in-home kidney dialysis technician. He finished his Ph.D. in 2003 upon completion of a dissertation on the effect of coping styles on cardiac rehabilitation adherence. He passed the national psychologist boards in 2005 and was licensed as a doctoral level psychologist in Maine. He completed pre-doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in forensic psychology at the  Spurwink Child Abuse Clinic. After returning to Maine, Barter began to explore candidacy in the ELCA, so that he could move from the Roman Catholic roster (where he was still technically on permanent leave) to the ELCA roster in New England. He started and stopped candidacy a couple of times, mainly over the ELCA’s prohibition of rostered gay clergy who would not take a vow of celibacy. Barter’s mother died in 2005 after 9 years of end-stage renal disease and dialysis.

In 2006, Barter completed the candidacy process in the hope that the ELCA policy on gay clergy would change (which it did in 2009). Since Barter was already ordained, he served as a supply pastor in the New England Lutheran Synod until receiving a call to be Pastor of St. Ansgar in July 2008. Subsequent to acceptance on the clergy roster of the ELCA, Barter was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

In recent years, Dr. Barter has become notable for his work in the area of marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. In February 2010, he was one of 127 signatories of a key amicus brief in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case seeking to overturn "Proposition 8" in California.

Other Information:

Member, Maine Psychological Association

Member American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children

Member, New England Synod Worship Committee

Member, Religious Coalition against Discrimination (Maine)

Consultant on clergy misconduct, New England Conference, United Methodist Church

Hobbies: Music (keyboard); cooking; carpentry; New England sports teams; gym rat; movies; hiking with his German Shorthaired Pointer