Background
Carter was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1927, the son of Earl and Ila Grace Smith Carter. His father managed several music stores. Carter grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, and later Park Ridge, Illinois.
Carter was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1927, the son of Earl and Ila Grace Smith Carter. His father managed several music stores. Carter grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, and later Park Ridge, Illinois.
Three years later, he completed a master’s degree in Greek studies at his alma mater, and in 1953 he received his doctorate there.
Carter was gay, and became one of the first Roman Catholic priests in the United States to acknowledge this publicly after he become one of the founders of the National Gay Task Force in 1973 (later the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force). lieutenant was only by our coming out that society’s negative stereotypes would be overcome and we would gain social acceptance."
Although there were calls for his expulsion, he was not disciplined. Earlier, in 1972, he had helped to found the New York chapter of DignityUSA, a support group for gay Catholics.
When the Catholic authorities said Dignity could not meet on church property, Carter celebrated Mass in apartments all around Manhattan.
He led blessing ceremonies for gay couples. He testified in support of the gay rights law proposed by Mayor Edward Koch before it was passed by the City Council in 1986.
He urged Dignity to march in gay pride parades and marched himself, in his clerical collar. He trained as a social worker at Columbia University in 1981 and went on to counsel gay priests and hundreds of lay Catholics.
By 1985 he was counseling Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome patients at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, and he later became a supervisor of the outpatient Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome program at the Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.
Carter died on February 22, 2010, at his residence at Fordham University in The Bronx, New York City, New New York