Upper West Side Church Leads the Pride Charge
By Jared Gonzalez and Caeden Conley
A Columbia University student from Germany was taking a tour of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine this Wednesday, June 14th. He saw the beams of light representing the LGBTQ+ flag and art promoting queer activists and believers inside the cathedral. “It is pretty cool that a church offers pride events because it is not what you expect,” he said as he walked down the steps of the Cathedral. “In Germany, churches tend to be more conservative. They counteract any type of pride progress.”
The Church of St. John’s The Divine, located on the Upper West Side, is hosting a series of events this June with a new set of art and song exhibits to honor the diverse LGBTQ+ community of New York City. This is the fourth year that the church has organized these activities for pride month.
The Cathedral is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. The Episcopal church is a welcoming church that has ordained LGBTQ+ pastors since 2009 and has a history of more progressive values.
With mountainous roofing and sky-scraping interior beams, illuminating pride-inspired lights rushed up the side of the towering church walls. The inside of the Cathedral was quite desolate. Serene calmness could be felt as the few church-goers on Wednesday morning were praying and taking in the extensive scenery of the ethereal hall.
When interviewed, it was found that most people aligned with the church’s progressive values. A retired Episcopal priest from Westchester, reaffirmed that pride events at St. John’s were at the core of his Christian values. “No one would choose to be an inflicted minority,” stated the retired priest, “the church should constantly make the point of full inclusion.”
When he was in seminary 30 years ago, the priest was conflicted on the issue. His journey to acceptance, stemming from his seminary training in Los Angeles, reflects the larger embrace of the LGBTQ+ community within liberal churches in general and the 130-year old Episcopal congregation in particular. St. John’s is not alone in these realizations; it was at the 1976 General Convention that the church stated “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.”
Other churches, like the Catholic church and conservative evangelical churches, generally tend to oppose gay rights. They may embrace LGBTQ+ members but they usually do not stand by their LGBTQ+ beliefs.
A couple from Florida, said that despite the portrayal of Florida in the media as a conservative state, the embrace of the LGBTQ+ community was of no surprise to them coming from the sunshine state. “When you take out the politics, there isn’t that much difference between people,” they said, “Our daughter has LGBTQ friends, and has even attended pride rallies in Florida.”
“Unsurprisingly, I’ve seen a handful of people comment with bigotry on social media posts advertising our Cathedral Pride events. However, I’ve learned not to waste my energy on these sorts of foolish, thoughtless comments,” said one of the musicians at the Cathedral, as well as one of the featured artists at the Pride Eversong music service.
As a gay man himself, he hopes that the art and music services will amplify the voices of queer composers, while creating a safe space for queer people of faith to gather in community and leave spiritually nourished.
“Religious institutions have a history of mistreating the queer community,” he said, “and so it is so important that these institutions now make every effort possible to support queer people.”
The retired priest added. “Love God and love your neighbor, no matter race or gender. We are all children of God.”