'Exmouth Quakers invited members and allies of the LGBT community to join them as part of the town’s Exmouth Pride festival.' Photo: courtesy of Exmouth Friends
Quakers celebrate LGBT history month
‘It was very moving to experience Quaker meditation together in a space where LGBT+ people are fully included and affirmed.'
Quakers have celebrated LGBT history this month through outreach and art. Exmouth Quakers invited members and allies of the LGBT community to join them as part of the town’s Exmouth Pride festival. Linking with its mind, body and spirit theme, the Exmouth Pride organisers wrote on Facebook: ‘It was very moving to experience Quaker meditation together in a space where LGBT+ people are fully included and affirmed. Some people expressed the bad experiences they have had with religion in the past. It felt healing and gives me hope for the future.’
Exmouth Quakers said they welcomed several new people to the Sunday worship, which was followed by an informal discussion on LGBT+ issues and Quakers.
Other Friends also took action to celebrate the occasion. Bolton Quaker Rosie Adamson-Clark was a guest speaker at a LGBT history film festival. She told the Friend: ‘The “Outing the Past” festival showcases current work which highlights the long and painful journey that LGBT members of society have gone through or endured. Other speakers are a mixture of academics and creative sorts to highlight the struggles LGBT people have had to be accepted and supported to live as full and valuable life as heterosexual folks.’
A film by Rose Adamson-Clark was also streamed at Bishopsgate Institute in East London on 23 February, the same day as her Zoom talk. Writing for Healthwatch, Rosie Adamson-Clark said that LGBT history should be celebrated because ‘we as a country need to celebrate difference, not castigate people… Hopefully, though, things around equality are still changing for the better… The rejection and harsh treatment suffered by so many because of their intrinsic difference in a heteronormative world, in some way still goes on sadly. This is why we must be visible and celebrate how far we have come in showing who we are, and how as equal members of society we are valuable.’
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