Slideshow image

This is the Sunday we would have been taking to the streets with our James Bay United Church banner, joining a great multitude of people in the Pride Parade, with many others along the route, affirming the deep need of the human spirit, and this deep need of our communities right now– to be real, to be joyful, to celebrate who we are, and who our neighbors are, without judgement or condition.

We’re not on the street this Sunday. But here’s a beautiful “coming together” of another sort to behold:

June 28 is the feast day of St. Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyons, who famously wrote,
“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

June 28 is also the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, now considered a galvanizing and symbolic event in the struggle for LGBTQ rights.  Police raided the Stonewall Inn bar, on the pretext that they were selling alcohol without a liquor license - but it was the third raid in a row on a Greenwich Village gay bar, and this time, the outraged patrons didn’t disperse, but rather gathered on the street and actively resisted the police.  The ensuing unrest lasted five days, and inspired activism around the country. On the first anniversary of the uprising, the inaugural gay pride parades were held in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.

In honor of Pride Month, here’s the SALT Project’s reflection on Homosexuality and the Bible.