by Jessica Carreras
This weekend, the LGBT and allied community will come together in faith.
Since 2004, the Faith Action Network has presented the Together in Faith Collaborative – a weekend retreat meant to spur discussion and action around religion and sexual orientation in Michigan. The 2009 retreat will take place Oct. 16-18 at the Colombiere Conference Center in Clarkston and will offer three days of motivational speeches, performances and workshops designed to embolden the faith and LGBT communities to work together for equality.
This year's collaborative will focus on Faith 4 Equality, which FAN Inclusive Justice Director Heather Grace said is about using faith to promote equal rights for all.
"What we're really stressing through Faith 4 Equality this year is the importance of people raising their voices for justice and equality in Michigan," she explained. "I think there are many activists engaged in Michigan, but our people of faith are the folks that we see either at the mosque or the temple or at church are the people where we really need to lift up their voices and hear what they have to say about discrimination and equality."
Moreover, said Grace, she feels that the collaborative will help both gay communities of faith and their allies to figure out how to use their voices to promote LGBT causes. "Traditionally in Michigan, which is a state that's full of people of faith, folks have not raised their voices as people of faith – and certainly not as queer people of faith around these issues," she asserted. "We really want to make sure that there's a vehicle for them to do so, and that they have the tools that they need to do so confidently."
The Together in Faith Collaborative intends to accomplish this – and more – through workshops, discussions and motivational speeches by leaders in the LGBT faith community.
Friday night's speaker will be Rev. Deborah L. Johnson, head of California-based Inner Light Ministries. "She'll be lifting us up for that Friday night keynote and talking about how we can empower ourselves," Grace said.
Saturday's speaker, Rev. Dr. Julie Nemecek, will talk about the importance of sharing personal stories in convincing the faith community to support gay rights. In Nemecek's case, this includes her controversial firing from Spring Arbor University, where she was a professor until she came out as transgender in 2007. Since then, Nemecek has told her story hundreds of times to local and national media.
Workshops at the collaborative will focus on such topics as creating welcoming congregations, mobilizing faith communities for equality and creating faith strategies for obtaining equal rights.
"Creating a Faith Strategy is actually going to be an opportunity for people to plan for what we'll be doing from 2010 to 2012," Grace said of the latter workshop. "And those will be around many of the issues like second parent adoption, safe schools, marriage equality, the Kalamazoo ordinance. There are plenty of places that are not covered by local ordinances here in Michigan, so people will be able to break out both on issue and geography and then report back."
Sessions will be run by such activists as Michigan Equality Co-Chair Michelle Brown, Lansing Association for Human Rights head Penny Gardner and Grace, who will focus on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Grace added that the purpose of the breakout groups is not only to educate and empower, but to get participants to start taking action. Groups will be taught how to write letters to legislators, share their stories constructively and use their talents to fight for equality in unique and various ways.
"It is a collaborative and not a conference, the different being that a conference you go and you get information and you take it back and you are just passively receiving that," Grace said. "The collaborative is designed for everyone that attends to be an active agent in making this change happen in Michigan."
It's a goal, she added, that faith groups should not shy away from – even on political issues, from local ordinances to national laws. "All people are motivated by their sense of morality to work on any justice issue," she maintained. "Any issue can be politicized. I think what we're talking about is that all of us have a sense of morality and many of us utilize our religions to guide our morality and in doing so, we need to find our place in speaking out."
And Grace is confident that the participating faith community members and congregations will do so – both during and long after the Together in Faith Collaborative is over. "We have over 20 partners from Detroit to Kalamazoo who have committed to engaging their congregations and their members; to actually work on these issues after they leave," she said. "Instead of asking for a certain amount of money to be a partner, we asked them for a certain amount of action. The difference is that while everyone needs money, we need people to actively be engaged with talking to their representatives, their family members, their congregations, their different organizations and making certain that people of faith are having their voices heard."
Together in Faith Collaborative
Oct. 16-18
Colombiere Conference Center, 9075 Big Lake Road, Clarkston
http://www.faithactionnetwork.org
