Symposium: Confronting & Diminishing Religious-Based Homophobia
This one-day symposium, which took place right after the Parliament of the World's Religions, brought together leading organizations and individuals involved in 2SLGBTIQ human rights issues around the world.
The symposium on Confronting and Diminishing Religious Based Homophobia on November 8, 2018 was an amazing day which far exceeded my [Brent’s] hopes!
This one-day symposium, which took place right after the Parliament of the World's Religions (PWR), brought together leading organizations and individuals involved in LGBTIQ2 human rights issues around the world.
Attendees came from Canada, United States, Jamaica, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Columbia and the Philippines. Among the group were the first openly gay Imam in North America, the first openly gay Orthodox Rabbi, representatives from the United Church of Canada, Metropolitan Community Churches, and Theology Professors. Five of the attendees were sponsored by RFFM to come to the PWR and our symposium. We are grateful to our sponsors, the United Church of Canada, Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, and various individual donors.
In partnership with Egale, we spent part of the day in plenary with a group of local teachers who were on a professional development day focused on LGBTIQ2 issues in their classrooms and the education system.
The majority of the time, however, was spent in our break-out sessions, focused on the Rainbow Faith and Freedom Movement (RFFM), which I founded. The vision of RFFM is to improve the lives of LGBT+ people globally by confronting religious-based homophobia, and our mission is to work to inspire faith communities and families to be safe places for LGBT+ people by changing the hearts and minds of individuals around the world.
In our first breakout group we listened to perspectives on how we all see and experience the reality of religious-based homophobia and what is being done to address it. We spent the second breakout session in conversation about our various responses to our proposed approach and recommendations as to how we should proceed from here.
Twenty-five attendees discussed what’s going on related to religious-based homophobia, what’s working and what’s not working. The RFFM model was presented and feedback received on what they liked about the model and what suggestions they had to improve the model. Under excellent facilitation by MCC Toronto’s Jim Allen and Dietrich Heine, RFFM received phenomenal feedback which will substantially impact the planning, launch and ultimate success of RFFM.
There were many pages of feedback which need to be typed up and once that is done my assistant and I will review the notes (along with her detailed notes) and summarize the key recommendations for consideration by the Steering Committee.
A huge part of the success of the Symposium was about our partnership with Egale Canada. Egale and their staff, led by Executive Director Helen Kennedy, were all amazing. Egale led a separate track for educators across Ontario on Religion and LGBT. We closed the formal part of the day with a final plenary conversation with the teachers.
Blessings,
Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes
#rainbowfaithandfreedom
Parliament of the World's Religions Comes to Toronto; First LGBTI Room Opened
Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes discusses the Parliament of World’s Religions meeting in Toronto in November, 2018 and including LGBTI programming for the first time. A Rainbow Lounge was opened, and there was even a same-sex, interfaith engagement ceremony!
The Parliament of the World’s Religions meets every three years and this year, they met in Toronto from Nov 1-8th. 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 [Rev Dr Brent Hawkes] 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 Parliament (PWR). We’ve 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 has 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 to include some LGBTI content 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 LGBT organizations and, as a result, the PWR accepted 19 workshops with LGBTI-supportive content to be included in the official program.
PWR also contacted us to offer a free hospitality space for the duration of the conference! It became the Rainbow Lounge and 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 on Nov 1st 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 LGBT workshops/panels were held in the Lounge. There was a constant flow of conference delegates dropping in to talk about coming out, having LGBTI children, how to influence their faiths to be more LGBTI-positive, etc etc.
Rev Pat Bumgardner from MCC New York and Rev Jim Merritt from MCC in Florida spent their 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 LGBTIQ2 People- from Muslim and Christian Perspectives”
“Sacred Knowledge: Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity in Sacred Texts and Other Teachings”
“The Global Inter-Faith Movement for Human Rights of LGBTI People”
I handed out brochures describing my international human rights initiative “the Rainbow Faith and Freedom Movement” (RFFM) and collected 70 names and emails from people across the globe interested in learning more about RFFM.
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. Would that be ok? We responded that certainly we’d 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! They made conference history that day for sure!
At the end of a busy week 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 LGBTI content for the next one.
I can’t express 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 Parliament was truly amazing.
At the official closing of the Parliament, the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament displayed 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 in front of 7500 delegates. 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 RFFM, 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.
Blessings,
Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes
#parliamentofworldreligions2018
Interview with Justin from "Queer From the Couch": Religious-based homophobia, Rainbow Faith & Freedom
Justin from Queer From the Couch talks to Rev Dr Brent Hawkes on international LGBTQ human rights, confronting and diminishing religious based homophobia and Rainbow Faith and Freedom.
“Queer From the Couch”, a popular vlog on YouTube about queer issues by The Queer Network, featured Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes on their show.
Hosted by Justin, the pair talked about confronting and diminishing religious-based homophobia and how Rainbow Faith & Freedom will address it.
Watch the full video here:
