Pride service welcomes LGBT people of many faiths

Pastor Jan Shannon knows what it’s like to be rejected by her church. After 25 years of marriage to a man, she was pushed out of the conservative Christian church she grew up in when she came out as lesbian.

“I wasn’t even allowed to be in the same room as a woman,” she said. Her church made her sign a contract promising to follow that rule. Instead, she left.

That choice left Shannon estranged from some members of her family. She struggled with her faith afterward.

“Finally, I realized that my love for God was so deep, that my faith in God was so strong that God loved me just as I am,” she said. She’s now a pastor at Spokane’s Westminster United Church of Christ.

Shannon knows many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have had similar struggles and are hungry for a faith community that welcomes them. This year, she decided to bring faith leaders together for an interfaith pride service, held Wednesday night at the Spark Center in Kendall Yards. The event was sponsored by OutSpokane, which hosts the annual pride celebration, and the Spokane Interfaith Council.

“You wrestled with God, and daily many of you have to wrestle with man just to live your lives as you are,” Shannon told the crowd.

About 100 people, from young children to senior citizens, attended the service. It included song, call-and-response prayers and words from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and New Thought clergy and leaders. The mood was joyful as leaders invoked this year’s pride theme, “From Silence to Celebration,” but turned somber as some recounted personal struggles.

Venerable Thubten Chonyi, a Buddhist nun from the Sravasti Abbey, spoke about her time as a lesbian activist who joined half a million people for the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

At that march, the NAMES Project Foundation unveiled the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a patchwork quilt with 1,920 panels commemorating people who had died of AIDS in the early years of the epidemic while the Reagan administration and media remained largely silent. That was around the time the AIDS activist group ACT UP began using the slogan “Silence = Death.”

“Silence has been society’s prescription for managing us. Silence has also been our safety from losing our seats in our temples, churches and synagogues,” she said.

Rabbi Tamar Malino, who leads services at Temple Beth Shalom and Congregation Emanu-El, spoke about entering Conservative rabbinical school in 1995 with her partner. They were both in the closet, she said.

When Malino and her partner came out, they were asked to leave school. Malino ended up joining the more liberal Reform Jewish tradition, but has since returned to Conservative Judaism after leaders changed their stance on ordaining LGBT rabbis.

“I am here in Spokane serving a Conservative congregation,” she said, holding back tears as many in the audience applauded.

She checked with the board president of her synagogue before the pride service and asked if he had a problem with her attending.

“No, I don’t have a problem with that, and if we had a problem with that, you should have a problem with us,” he told her.

Introductory speeches were followed by a candlelight procession, starting with an older woman who has been a longtime ally of the LGBT community and ending with Rachel White, a young transgender girl. A total of nine people representing every letter in the LGBT acronym marched up the center aisle holding candles.

“The symbolism of that was really beautiful,” said Michael Jepson, who’s chairing the pride parade this year.

Sierra Valdez, 19, said she appreciated the service, especially the call-and-response parts. She grew up in a more conservative Christian church where she regularly heard homophobic remarks from friends’ parents. Her family was supportive when she came out as lesbian, and she’s remained faithful throughout.

“I never wanted my faith to go. It was always something that was important to me,” she said. “In some ways, it’s almost made my faith stronger.”

Shannon said she hopes to hold a service like this every year. She hopes people who wanted to come but stayed away out of fear would attend future services.

“Until somebody in a collar or somebody in a robe tells them they’re OK, they’re going to continue to be hurt,” she said.

The service began with light rain outside. By the time it was over an hour later, the clouds had cleared and a rainbow was hanging over the Spokane River.