Welcoming lesbian, gay and bisexual people

All Hallows has a history of openly welcoming and affirming lesbian, gay and bisexual people going back more than fifteen years, to our hosting of the northern launch of Daring to Speak Love’s Name, a lesbian and gay prayer book, in 1992. And that milestone event was a reflection of a welcoming approach that already existed.

Lesbian and Gay Liberation Sunday

Coinciding with Rainbow Weekend in Leeds, we invited queer human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to speak at our Sunday morning service on 22 July 2001, in All Hallows’ first celebration of ‘Lesbian and Gay Liberation Sunday’. This has now become an annual event.

Annual concerts by the ‘Sacred Wing’ of Gay Abandon

See the Arts Events page.

Becoming an Welcoming and Open Congregation

In 2000—2001 we were actively working towards membership of LGCM’s Inclusive Congregations project. Unfortunately that project has since been abandoned.

At the autumn 2000 Eat and Meet we all felt that we should press ahead with the process of ensuring that we are fully welcoming and inclusive, and that this process is more important than the final signing up to the Inclusive Congregations scheme, which we hoped eventually to do alongside other churches. We also felt that being inclusive of sexual minorities is part of a much wider inclusivity and should not be seen in isolation — we are not a single-issue church.

In 2002 we signed up to Changing Attitude’s Welcoming and Open Congregations scheme and are therefore listed on their website.

The need for change in the wider church

All Hallows has not been reticent in proclaiming the need for change in the wider church, and we have been encouraged by the many other voices that have pointed the way forward. Here is just one excellent example:

• Reclaiming Christian Orthodoxy: Address by Bishop Michael Ingham at LGCM’s Halfway to Lambeth conference (25 October 2003)

In 2003 our ‘patronal festival’, All Saints Sunday, was the (highly appropriate) day when Gene Robinson was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire. An article based on Ray Gaston's sermon that day has been posted on the A Globe of Witnesses website — it is entitled ‘Create a Heterosexual Family’ was not Jesus’ Message. The article begins:

The significance of Gene Robinson's consecration as a bishop cannot be underestimated. It is an act of unity that works towards healing a schism that has caused so much violence and pain down the years — the schism between the church and those who have felt the call to same-sex love.

This page was last updated on Friday, 23 May 2008

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