By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On Wednesday, June 14th, The Center at The Heights hosted local clergy members to speak about Religion and LGBTQIA+ Acceptance through a historical lens. Various faiths were discussed including Christianity, Judaism, Unitarian, and Baptists.
In honor of Pride month, CATH decided that it would be a great opportunity to discuss this topic with those seniors who wanted to learn more about the LGBTQIA+ community and how religions have changed over the years. To help out with this topic, clergy members from Needham and surrounding areas were present and ready to greatly discuss the history of the topic at hand.
These clergy members included Rev. Sandra Bonnette-Kim of the Carter Memorial Church (United Methodist), Pastor Ben Herrmann of First Baptist in Jamaica Plain & Needham (American Baptist), and Rev. Catie Scudera of First Parish in Needham (Unitarian Universalist).
In terms of their goal for this event, Rev. Catie Scudera stated, “[We are] Reviewing the history and arc of LGBTQ existence, exclusion, and inclusion in religious community, with an understanding of modern biblical interpretation and systematic cisheterosexism and a special focus on the Baptist, Methodist, and Unitarian/Universalist traditions.” While interpretations can be held in many different lights, it was important for these clergy members to show that there also could have been more positive writing that was depicted about the LGBTQ+ within biblical texts.
The seniors who came for this event openly admitted that they had learned many new things that they had not known before. One aspect that seemed especially intriguing was the LGBTQ behaviors that are seen in the rest of the Animal Kingdom. Rev. Catie Scudera mentioned how there are over 1,000 species that show same-sex partnerships and/or the ability to change sex. To clarify, she specifically stated, “Similar to the human species, we see what we would call the LGTBQ behaviors and existence in the Animal Kingdom. … This demonstrates that what we experience in the human species is not unnatural when it comes to LGBTQIA existence and behavior, it’s not abnormal in the broader Animal Kingdom.”
All in all this presentation gave amazing insight into how the history of religion and LGBTQIA+ has greatly changed due to more modern interpretations of biblical texts. What an excellent presentation to give during Pride month.
