Tag Archives: gay pride

The Wild Reed: A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride

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Every year at this time, Michael Bayly at features a post on “A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride”, in his own city of Minneapolis – St Paul. This year, the celebration for Twin Cities queer Catholics will have been particularly sweet, after their twin successes in off last year’s attempt to entrench marriage discrimination in the state constitution, later capped by the success of equal marriage legislation. Bayly and his Catholic colleagues, both LGBT and straight allies, were heavily involved in both efforts, and reaped the rewards of many years of hard work towards full LGBT inclusion and equality in church.

Catholics for marriage equality, MN

Here’s the introduction to this year’s report. (Read the full post at The Wild Reed – then dip into recent history, and see the earlier versions, for 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007)

I spent most of last weekend (June 29-30) in Minneapolis’ Loring Park at the Twin Cities Pride festival. I helped staff the CPCSM/Catholics for Marriage Equality MN booth and participated in Sunday’s parade down Hennepin Avenue in the heart of Minneapolis.

Giving the recent advances in marriage equality at both the state and federal levels, our theme this year was “Catholics Celebrating Marriage Equality!” We altered our banner to reflect this theme and gave out hundreds of stickers bearing this message (above left). These stickers were very popular.

Above and below: As well as giving out our “Catholics Celebrating Marriage Equality” stickers, we also invited visitors to our booth to complete a questionnaire so as to help us discern our future direction and focus as an organization. Questions included:

• What do you think is the most pressing area of concern for LGBT people in the Roman Catholic Church?

• How would you describe your relationship to the Church?

• Where do you currently find affirmation and spiritual nourishment?

-continue reading at The Wild Reed

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St. Louis Pride: Catholics Promote Inclusion

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Last week, the St. Louis Archdiocese was quick to condemn the United States Supreme Court for favoring gay marriage, issuing a harshly worded statement that marriage must be between one man and one woman. Others in the city praised the decision allowing same-sex couples to access federal benefits — and noted that it would be an especially energetic PrideFest this year.

And one such group to come out this weekend and celebrate national progress in gay rights was a coalition of LGBT-friendly Catholic groups that aim to promote the exact opposite message of the Archdiocese.

 

Catholic pride, St Louis

Catholic pride, St Louis

“It needs to be spoken that there are many Catholics who see no conflict at all with following the Catholic faith and being open and affirming with the diversity of all of God’s creations,” Jennifer Reyes Lay, executive director of the Catholic Action Network for Social Justice, tells Daily RFT, adding, “We are stronger and richer because of that diversity.

The Catholic Action Network is one of a handful of groups that have come together to form Welcoming Catholic Communities, a pro-LGBT coalition that is pushing back against the Archdiocese’s exclusionary message and anti-marriage equality agenda. (The other groups are Sts. Clare & Francis Ecumenical Catholic Communion, St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church, Therese of Divine Peace Roman Catholic Church and Marybeth McBryan Roman Catholic Woman Priest).

via  – St. Louis – News – Daily RFT.

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Catholic Parish Hosts Pride Prayer Service

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All Saints Catholic Church in Syracuse held a prayer service during Pride celebrations, which celebrated LGBT people and honored all those struggling for equality. Fr. Fred Daley, the church’s pastor who ‘came out’ as gay in 2004, gathered an interfaith assembly of several dozen for the service. He spoke about why a Catholic church would host such an event:

“Our mission is to be open and welcoming to all people. I think that often religion of all types lose focus on that and can instead become instruments of isolation and segregation. We are trying to be sure to do our best to stop that at All Saints…

“This is about God’s love – God made all of us, and we teach that God is good. This event tonight is about inclusion and where there is inclusion there is light.”

You can read more about the prayer service at CNYCentral.com and view the video below to hear more from Fr. Daley.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

All Saints Catholic Church in Syracuse held a prayer service during Pride celebrations, which celebrated LGBT people and honored all those struggling for equality. Fr. Fred Daley, the church’s pastor who ‘came out’ as gay in 2004, gathered an interfaith assembly of several dozen for the service. He spoke about why a Catholic church would host such an event:

“Our mission is to be open and welcoming to all people. I think that often religion of all types lose focus on that and can instead become instruments of isolation and segregation. We are trying to be sure to do our best to stop that at All Saints…

“This is about God’s love – God made all of us, and we teach that God is good. This event tonight is about inclusion and where there is inclusion there is light.”

You can read more about the prayer service at CNYCentral.com and view the video below to hear more from Fr. Daley.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

via | Bondings 2.0.

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400 Mormons March in Solidarity at Utah Pride Parade

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For the second successive year, grassroots group Mormons Building Bridges marched in the Salt Lake City Gay Pride parade, making a symbolic show of support from the religious community along with marchers from Unitarian and Episcopalian denominations.

Pride Parade Mormons

The Rt. Rev. Scott Hayashi, who was bishop of All Saints Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City and Park City’s St. Luke’s, joined in — the first time an Episcopal bishop has taken part in the parade, according to Lee Shaw, a member of the Episcopalian fold.About 400 people from Mormons Building Bridges faced the 80-degree sunshine to march behind a loud Ska band playing on the Downtown Farmers Market float. For about 90 minutes, the parade meandered up 400 East and took a left onto 200 South for six blocks before ending at West Temple.Marching under a banner reading Family Reunion, organizer and founder Erika Munson said the group and others have helped change attitudes in the past year: Bishops no longer excommunicate members who come out, and the Boy Scouts now allow openly gay scouts to participate.The Mormon group drew some of the loudest applause when they passed with signs reading “Love 1 Another,” “LDS heart LGBT” and “God loves all his children.”

The-  Salt Lake Tribune.

Liverpool FC kicks hate out of soccer with gay pride march

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Liverpool FC has announced they are to march in the city’s gay pride festival, making them first premier league club to show open support for LGBT pride.

 

The team is captained by England FC’s Steven Gerrard and players will march with the Liverpool Ladies side under a banner displaying the club’s crest. The team will also be selling club merchandise to raise money for pride.

Liverpool FC recently worked with Liverpool Pride on the Football v Homophobia tournament, hosted at the club’s academy earlier this year. The aim of the tournament was to end any association between football and homophobia.

Club supporters, LGBT or not, are all welcome to join the parade behind the marching banner to show their support for the cause. The march will begin at William Brown street, gathering at 11am and marching at midday on 4 August.

– Gay Star News.

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Paris Gay Pride buoyed by promise of gay marriage law

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Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe (C) marches in the Gay Pride in Paris

Always colourful and raucous, the annual Gay Pride parade in Paris on Saturday was further buoyed by the promise of France’s new Socialist government to legalise gay marriage and adoption rights.

“This is a special parade because it is the first time we have a government, a president, a parliament who are in favour of progress,” said Nicolas Gougain, spokesman for the the gay rights group Inter-LGBT.

Organisers were expecting record levels of attendance from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual) community at the parade heading from Montparnasse to the iconic Place de la Bastille.

Symbolically, French Minister for Families Dominique Bertinotti turned out to see the floats set off.

“I go everywhere where the future of the family is at stake,” she said, adding that “every bit of social progress benefits society as a whole”.

Bertinotti said she was “confident” the law “would be passed in 2013”.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said ahead of the march on Friday that “the right to marriage and adoption for all would be put in place” during President Francois Hollande’s five-year mandate, but did not specify the date.

-full report at AFP

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An Introduction to the Theology of Gay Pride

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June is Gay Pride Month.

Gay Pride is, simply, being proud of being gay, being proud of who God created you to be, recognizing the gift of human diversity, and that one’s sexual orientation is inherent, not “learned.”

June came to be recognized as Pride Month because the Stonewall uprising (“Stonewall riots”) took place in June 1969.

Some Christians who for various reasons do not like “Gay Pride” will often point to the use of the word “pride,” and say that pride is a sin.

Pride is, of course, a sin. But sinful pride is not what is referred to by “Gay Pride.”

Sinful pride is the desire to be more important or attractive than others, not recognizing the good work of others, and loving oneself excessively. Dante, when speaking of the “7 Deadly sins,” says of the sin of pride that it is “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbor.”

If we consider pride (superbia) as vice, its corresponding virtue is humility (humilitas).

Gay Pride, then, is not sinful pride. This sort of pride is the antonym of shame, not humility. Shame has been used for centuries to control and oppress gay people. Therefore “Gay Pride” is liberation from that oppression, and not the vice of superbia.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Pax et bonum

–Faith in the 21st century

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Pentagon to celebrate gay pride for US troops

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US military saluted for supporting gay servicemen just months after repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy

The US military will salute gay troops by holding its first ever pride event, just months after repealing the notorious ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

Details of the celebrations are still being ironed out, but the Pentagon’s announcement to mark gay pride month in June has been seen by activists as a sign of how rapidly the Defence Department is changing, reported the Associated Press.

‘I don’t think it’s just moving along smoothly, I think it’s accelerating faster than we even thought the military would as far as progress goes,’ said Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried.

–Gay Star News

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Target sells T-shirts to help pro-gay marriage group

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Two years after Target Corp. angered gay marriage supporters with a political donation that benefited a fiery gay marriage opponent seeking the governor’s office, the retailer is now upsetting same-sex marriage opponents by selling T-shirts to raise money for a group working to defeat a gay marriage ban in Minnesota.

-full report at Detroit Free Press

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Amped (Ezekiel 37:1-6)

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The hand of Adonai was upon me, and it carried me away by the spirit ofAdonai and set me down in a valley – a valley full of bones. God made me walk up and down among them. And I saw that there was a vast number of bones lying there in the valley, and they were very dry. God asked me, “Mere mortal, can these bones live?”

                I answered, “Only you know that, Sovereign Adonai.”
                And God said, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: ‘Dry bones, hear the word of Adonai! Sovereign Adonai says to these bones: I am going to breathe life into you. I will fasten sinews on you, clothe you with flesh, cover you with skin, and give you breath. And you will live; and you will know that I am Sovereign Adonai.”
Ezekiel 37:1-6
 

As a queer person of faith, do you ever grow tired? In the midst of the daily struggle for acceptance rest can be nothing more than a diminutive oasis in a vast desert. Worn out, dried up, and half buried by the sands of scorn, our bones lie scattered across the shifting dunes of indifference.

Water cannot revive these bones, nor can bandages knit back together what the vultures of contempt have torn apart. Only the force of life itself can revive what decay has claimed.

For Ezekiel the life giving force of the universe was the word of God – the divine creative energy dancing across the cosmos. Such energy brought into being the thoughts and aspirations of the Sacred.

– full reflection at Bible in Drag