It is helpful to step back from time to time and take stock of where we are in creating congregations that genuinely welcome and include LGBTQ+ people. When you are working to expand your welcome, take a little time to inventory your leaders and ministries. At this halfway point in the year, we suggest asking […]
There are amazing people of faith around the world who are working to make our communities inclusive, accepting, diverse, and vibrant. This week, we encourage you to get to know some more of them, especially your neighbors from other faith traditions. We can learn a tremendous amount from each other. Working with those from other […]
Speaking out about issues of justice and inclusion for LGBTQ+ people, our families, and our communities is critically important. It is important because it is one way to take the beliefs of your community out of the pews and into the public arena and to promote dialogue. It also disrupts the ongoing misperception that people […]
Since any time of the year is a good time to talk about the fact that religious people have been advocating for LGBTQ inclusion for quite a while, your congregation might want to the opportunity now to investigate the movement for LGBTQ equality within your tradition. You can then highlight your findings. One great place […]
Providing opportunities for all couples to celebrate their weddings is very important to fully affirm LGBTQ people in your community. It is seen by many as a sign that a faith group has truly committed to equality for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Denominations and religions have a variety of positions on […]
Click here to view a video recording of this CLGS Jewish Queries Series event! “Hear the gay shouts of liberation in the tents of the just!” (Psalm 118:15). Reciting the festival liturgy on Pride Shabbat was an important innovation at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York, founded in 1973; so was this early gay-inclusive new […]
On 19 June 1865 Union General Gordon Granger proclaimed in Galveston, Texas, the federal government’s decree that all previously-enslaved people in Texas were free; this proclamation was read over two and a half years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln on 1 January 1863. It is […]