Welcoming Congregation
The Welcoming Congregation Program is a completely volunteer program for congregations that see a need to become more inclusive towards bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or transgender people. It consists of a series of workshops developed by the UUA. The goal of the workshops is to reduce prejudice by increasing understanding and acceptance among people of different sexual orientations. Some of the workshop titles include: How Homophobia Hurts Heterosexuals; Connections to Other Forms of Oppression; Gender Socialization and Homophobia; and Biblical Perspectives on Homosexuality. Many congregations offer the workshop series several consecutive times as an adult religious education curriculum open to all members and friends. In some congregations the workshop series (and later the entire program) is sponsored by a Welcoming Congregation Task Force/Committee created for just this purpose, while other congregations sponsor the workshop series through their Interweave chapters. In either case, the workshops are best facilitated by those that have experienced the curriculum.
Steps to Becoming a Welcoming Congregation
Education
1. Offer religious education that incorporates bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender life issues, including the workshop series from the Welcoming Congregation Program.
2. Promote participation by the congregation’s minister, religious education minister or director, president, and/or moderator in the Welcoming Congregation Program.
3. Offer a congregation-wide workshop program(s), with follow-up opportunities for study and reflection.
4. Use the Unitarian Universalist sexuality education program, Our Whole Lives.
Congregational Life
1. Form a broad-based Welcoming Congregation committee to offer programs and monitor progress.
2. Adjust congregational bylaws and other relevant documents to include an affirmative nondiscrimination clause concerning membership, hiring practices, and the calling of religious professionals.
3. Use inclusive language and content as a regular part of worship services, and provide worship coordinators and speakers with guidelines on inclusive language.
4. Provide main worship space and ministerial services for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender rites of passage, such as services of union and dedications of children.
5. Welcome bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or transgender persons in the congregation’s brochure.
6. Ensure that publications, public information, and programming reflect the requested status of any individual as s/he sees appropriate; recognize same-gender couples in directories and other publications as they desire.
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Community Outreach
1. Celebrate and affirm bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender issues and history during the church year (possibly including Gay Pride Week in June or National Coming Out Day in October).
2. Participate in and/or support efforts to create justice, freedom, and equality for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or transgender people in the larger society.
3. (again) Provide main worship space and ministerial services for bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender rites of passage, such as services of union and dedications of children. (This guideline is also listed as number 8 under Congregational Life.)
4. Establish and maintain contact with local bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or transgender groups to offer support and promote dialogue and interaction.
5. Advertise in the local press and/or other media that reaches the bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender communities.
6. Provide use of building space on an equivalent basis with other Unitarian Universalist organizations when requested by members for programs and meetings of an Interweave (Unitarian Universalists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns) chapter.
