Rainbow Faith and Freedom (RFF) had an important presence at the Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR) Conference in Toronto in November, 2018. This was followed immediately by a symposium (organized in conjunction with EGALE) on November 8, 2018, where 25 invited guests from around the world provided feedback and guidance on the vision and direction of RFF. I’ll share more details with you about the symposium in the next blog article.
At the PWR, which meets every three years, there were 7500 delegates in attendance from 120 of the world’s religions. When we heard that it was coming to Toronto, Doug Kerr and I thought this would be the perfect time for us to gather folks from around the world to look at the issue of religious-based homophobia and also to have an impact on the PWR. We had been trying for the last few years to organize a conference on religious-based homophobia and this seemed to be the perfect time. Never in the past had the Parliament had any LGBTI content in their official program, so we approached the Parliament’s head office in Chicago and expressed that it was time since their theme for this Parliament was Love and Inclusion. We received an enthusiastic response! They asked us to submit names for speakers and suggestions for workshops and panels. We got the word out to other LGBTI organizations and, as a result, the PWR accepted 19 workshops with LGBTI-supportive content to be included in the official program. They also contacted us to offer a free hospitality space for the whole conference. It became the Rainbow Lounge! It was decorated with large panels depicting LGBTI couples and some photos of members of the local LGBTI Mosque. We opened the Lounge with a special reception to a full room. It was an electric atmosphere as we made history with the first ever PWR LGBTI event!
As the week progressed, many of the LGBTI workshops and panels were held in the Lounge. There was a constant flow of conference delegates dropping into the Lounge to talk about coming out, raising LGBTI children, how to influence their faiths to be more LGBTI-positive, etc. Rev Pat Bumgardner from MCC New York and Rev Jim Merritt from MCC in Florida spent the whole conference in the lounge with me greeting the people who dropped by. My husband John made 300 rainbow ribbons for people to wear and they were all taken and worn. The panels we organized included “Creating a Different Future: Building Faith Communities Inclusive of LGBTI People - from Muslim and Christian Perspectives”, “Sacred Knowledge: Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity in Sacred Texts and Other Teachings”. In “The Global Inter-Faith Movement for Human Rights of LGBTI People”, I handed out brochures describing my international human rights initiative, RFF, and collected 70 names and emails from people across the globe interested in learning more about RFF. On the Sunday of the Parliament a minister from the Unity Movement came to me and said that a young couple wanted to use the Rainbow Lounge to celebrate an engagement ceremony, and would that be ok? We responded that we’d certainly be honoured to have it in the Lounge. On Monday the ceremony occurred, and it was very moving. For the rest of the Parliament, this young gay couple walked around the conference site proudly holding hands.
We closed our Lounge on the final evening of the PWR and the room was packed. We recognized and celebrated the great beginning that this PWR represented and we pledged to build on this foundation for an even better PWR in three years’ time. Many folks signed up to help plan the LGBT content for the next one. I can’t state enough how exciting it was to be part of this historic event. To meet spiritual activists from all over the world from many different faiths and to see this potentially transformational entry into the Religions of the World. At the official closing ceremony of the Parliament, the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament put on the screen for all 7500 delegates to see the pictures of the Engagement Ceremony and said that this was an example of the success of the Parliament, and indicated his support for LGBTI inclusion. For many in the room this was a clear signal that the time had come to seriously look at being more inclusive of LGBTI people. As a side event, I hosted a dinner for 10 people from RFF, the Global Justice Institute, and the Global Interfaith Network out of South Africa, so that our three organizations could talk about what makes each of the organizations unique and how we might work together. It was a great start for an exciting cooperative relationship.
This was the first time that RFF had been a visible presence at a major international event. Our impact was a significant breakthrough and laid the groundwork for RFF to improve the lives of LGBTI people around the world by ensuring that religious-based discrimination against the LGBTI community is addressed and diminished.
