June is officially designated Pride month, celebrating Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people. Many, myself included, expand Pride to encompass folx from a variety of sexual orientations and gender identities, not limiting the rainbow to these four.
Pride is a time for people from various communities to come together, some dressed in their favorite rainbow attire, some in t-shirts with witty quips like “I’m not gay, but my boyfriend is” and “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian.”
There are drag queens and drag kings, schoolteachers and firefighters and marching bands and dancing queers jamming out to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” There are religious groups marching in solidarity, and PFLAG members supporting their LGBTQIA family members, handing out those coveted pink stickers that read, “I’m loved by PFLAG.”
Pride is a time for friends to get together and party, celebrating their identities and their love openly and boldly and proudly.
The significance of these public events, the affirming words of queer leaders, witnessing couples and families of all stripes and flavors joining with straight and cis allies, chanting and laughing and dancing and loving; the significance of these cannot be overstated.
I know for me attending my first Pride rally in college, I felt a sense of belonging, the sensation of the isolation and fear I had lived with my entire life starting to slip away as I stood next to people like me. I remember hearing for the first time that I was a beloved child of G-d; being told explicitly that who I am is not, in fact, an abomination nor am I condemned to hell for loving a woman.
As a young butch lesbian, those experiences were life-changing and soul-sustaining for me.
Pride offers this in so many ways to so many different people. Whether it’s the bears decked out in their leather waving to kids on the sidewalk or the dykes on bikes leading the parade revving their engines to delighted screams from the crowd, this is the place for folx to feel they belong. This is the place where queerness is lauded as a powerful turning away from the status quo.
Pride is a time to lift up our diversity and celebrate both the mundane and the kinky, the dapper and the flamboyant, the loud and the soft, the sexy and the spiritual. It’s a time for celebrating our individual uniqueness and our innate dignity and worth.
On this Pride Sunday, from this pulpit, I tell you friends, without equivocation,
That you are beloved.
You are whole and beautiful and worthy as you are.
Asexual, aromantic, pansexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, straight
Genderqueer, transgender, cisgender, agender, gender non-conforming, androgynous, fluid, intersex
butch, femme, monogamous, polyamorous
YOU ARE BELOVED.
You can be proud of the way you move through this world, of who you love and how you love, what you look like and what your voice sounds like. Makeup or no, partnered or single, who you are is beloved.
It’s true that Pride is about dignity and self-respect for all who are marginalized and persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Pride is also a time to come together to celebrate victories for equal rights and the moments when justice triumphed over oppression, such as gaining legal protection from discrimination in employment and housing and two years ago when the Supreme Court handed down the decision legalizing same-sex marriage. These are all reasons to celebrate. And celebrate we do.
However, in addition to this, we must contend with the world we live in where homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and sexism are ingrained in our daily reality.
In this day in age, when the president of the United States attempts to ban transgender people from military service,
when the violence against and murder of black trans women continues to increase,
when religious institutions continue to condemn and treat as less than human queer believers in their own faith,
when bigoted politicians with hateful rhetoric produce legislation that bans gay couples from adopting children,
when young queer and questioning folx decide the pain of living is too much to bear and choose to exit this life early,
when discrimination in healthcare and employment delay or deny hormone therapy and gender affirming surgery for folx who are transitioning,
when a family member, a co-worker, a fellow congregant refuses to use our correct name and our pronouns,
when everyday microaggressions compound and societal pressure to conform, (meaning to contort oneself into something one is not,) crushes people under the weight of rigidity and conservatism,
it becomes ever more imperative that we declare loudly and proudly the rallying cry coined by Queer Nation in 1990, “We’re here; we’re queer! Get used to it.”
It’s important to remember, amid the celebrations, that Pride began as a revolt. The Stonewall Uprising in 1969 was not a party that broke out in celebration of people being who they are without shame; it was the beginning of a revolution where people pushed back against ongoing violent oppression and demanded that they have the basic human right to exist.
It began with people saying enough is enough. You do not get to beat me, imprison me, kill me, anymore.
We’re here, we’re queer!
Kadence Cole writes:
“Pride exists because of a woman…
Pride exists because of a black trans woman…
Pride exists because of a black, bisexual trans woman, who was a sex worker, that threw a brick at a cop and started a riot against the state.
Don’t lose this month in rainbow capitalism and unabashed racism because the privilege of being white while queer. Queerness doesn’t cure white guilt and racism.
If you aren’t supporting the queer people of color, trans woman, and queer sex workers, you aren’t celebrating pride, you are celebrating rainbow capitalism and police brutality.
Marsha P. Johnson gave us this season, make her proud.”
Marsha Johnson is one of the people credited with starting the riot outside the Stonewall Inn 49 years ago. She is one of the many revolutionary leaders who sparked the larger movements for queer liberation. And it’s important that we remember the fight these revolutionary ancestors underwent to bend that arc in the direction of justice.
Ancestors such as Sylvia Riveria, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Stormé DeLarverie, Jose Sarria, Brenda Howard, Martha Shelley, Leslie Feinberg, Harvey Milk, Fran Drescher, Audre Lorde.
These are some of our revolutionary ancestors. People who started movements, who spoke out and turned the tide. Unwavering and relentless, their persistence provided fuel for the fire we must keep tending today.
Pride is not just about celebration; it’s about revolution too.
It’s “taking to the streets to both celebrate diversity and demand equal rights.” (Jeff Taylor)
It’s both/ and.
Both calls for justice and equality with acts of resistance as well as a time to honor who you are and fly your rainbow flag proudly. Pride is all of this.
And as Cole points out, if we aren’t acknowledging the intersectionality, we’re missing the mark. After Stonewall, Marsha Johnson insistently called for social and economic justice; worked on behalf of homeless street youth ostracized by their families, and later advocated for people living with AIDS.
It wasn’t just about her trans identity.
If we seek gay liberation separate from black liberation,
if we seek female liberation separate from trans liberation,
if we stop in our tracks because some people have the legal right to marry now while others go to sleep hungry because they had to choose between buying food or purchasing medicine for their children,
if we insist on justice for some and not for all, we too miss the mark.
This is where we can draw from our revolutionary roots. The fierce leaders and the ordinary people who came before us, clearing the path, bending the arc.
We can learn from and be inspired by their determination and wisdom, and we can also be spurred to action by the mistakes and harms of our ancestors, to right the wrongs inflicted, to tear the systems of oppression down and build the Beloved Community in their place.
For those who churned the waters and powered the wave through the 70’s at a time when homosexuality was still listed as a mental illness,
For those who lived through the early years of AIDS and held the hand of loved ones as they slipped from this plane to the next,
For those who pushed back in the 90’s at a time when parents refused to have their precious, presumably straight cisgender children taught by queer teachers, when religious homophobes picketed the funeral of gay college student Matthew Shepherd,
For those who began domestic violence agencies specifically for queer folx, who developed the It Gets Better movement and started the Trans Lifeline, for all the youth today sharing their same-sex promposals on social media, and our newly elected trans and queer representatives
We say, We’re still here!
All people have inherent worth. Peace, liberty, and justice for all. These are our professed principles. We affirm these to be true.
The president of our Unitarian Universalist Association, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, recently wrote that this is “no time for casual faith.” She said, “We, [Unitarian Universalists,] are clear about our core commitment to the dignity of all people—that’s our touchstone.
But the challenge for us, as for all people of faith, is putting that commitment into everyday practice. And… I don’t just mean activism and advocacy but also the indispensable practice of showing loving-kindness and generosity toward one another as we struggle together toward a different kind of society.”
We must love one another as we dismantle the systems of oppression and in their place build the Beloved Community.
We must simultaneously build each other up, honoring who we are as individuals and supporting one another on this human journey. And we must work diligently for the same sense of peace and security, safety and wellbeing for all people that we want for ourselves. No one is free until we are all free.
Right now in our nation, we have a crisis at our border.
The current administration has put into place cruel policies and practices that instruct federal agents to rip crying children from the arms of their parents and warehouse them inhumanely. Now is no time for casual faith.
We must listen to the voices of those most marginalized amongst us.
We must commit to put ourselves on the line for the values we hold dear, whether that’s showing up for civil disobedience with the Poor People’s Campaign or rallying at ICE detention centers,
or volunteering with local and national agencies providing legal defense for immigrants.
Perhaps we donate to agencies like the ACLU, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and Texas Civil Rights Project, or we write letters to our elected officials and to the media. We join a protest in the streets with groups like Families Belong Together.
Now is no time for casual faith.
On this Pride Sunday, let us commit ourselves anew to the justice we talk about in this sanctuary. Let us draw from the wisdom and fortitude of our revolutionary ancestors and set to the work of building the Beloved Community for all.
This means respecting one another, taking responsibility for the impact of our words and behavior even when our intentions are pure.
This means listening to the call from our professionals of color naming institutional racism within our own denomination.
This means listening to the stories and demands of women pushing back against the power of sexism and patriarchy within our churches and communities.
This means asking “Who am I excluding by using this space, or using this language, using this scent?”
This means respecting one another’s identities, using the name and pronouns someone asks you to use.
This means moving outside our comfort zone and acknowledging that our comfort was never more important than another person’s right to live.
The late Dr. James Cone said, “It doesn’t matter what your theology is unless you’re doing something with it.” Our principles are sincere and profound, but they become hollow without action.
We’re here. And whether you identify as queer or not, now is the time to act boldly.
When an airplane takes off headed for the sky and its intended destination, those piloting the aircraft work very hard to ensure things go as planned. And as the airplane begins its ascent, when the wheels come off the ground and the actual flight begins, the front of the plane is angled upward toward the sky.
The plane doesn’t fly in a straight trajectory, but rather angles up so the expansive wings can catch the air and push it below, propelling the vehicle further into the atmosphere.
This is much like the movement for justice. We orient ourselves to the many injustices demanding our attention; develop a flight plan, coordinate our efforts, and collectively we aim the nose of the plane where we want it to go.
Our destination – the Beloved Community.
And the fuel that thrusts us forward in the direction of justice comes from our revolutionary roots. What our ancestors taught us, the path they forged, the obstacles they overcame, the determination they passed along to us, the vision of what’s possible;
Let us take these with us as we embark on this flight. Angling our plane, lifting our nose in the direction we want to go, we aim high and together we soar.
We’re here. Some of us are queer. And we’re ready to fly.
Topics: Community