Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD: Honoring Queer Bodies & Committing to LGBTQIA+ Justice

“Everyone deserves care that honors the dignity and sovereignty of our bodies and our kin.” – Susan Raffo, Liberated to the Bone

“For it was you who formed me…You knit me together…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…my frame was not hidden from you…intricately woven in the depths of the earth…”
 – Excerpts of Psalm 139: 13-15, NRSVU

Pride month begins in June and my queer body rejoices in celebrating my queer ancestors, those present in the work today and all of my co-conspirators who walk with me.

What continues to become evident to me is how vital it is to remember our bodies in this work of justice, ministry, being human and showing up for one another.

As this year’s election cycle creates higher amounts of harmful anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, I believe in the work of honoring our bodies with soft space and mirroring our kin-ship to one another. I believe in running barefoot along the soil of creation to remember how God called us in to tend to one another. I believe in showing up to one another and choosing love. And I believe in the power of remembering God’s love and intention in creating each of us.

If God’s ask of us is to care for creation and Christ’s share for us is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, then beginning with love can be our foundation. This is why Gender & Sexuality Justice Ministries is beginning our new campaign Love is Louder: Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD. In the vast sea of our uniqueness, our commonality and thread to one another is within the love God created us through and we harbor within us.

LGBTQIA+ siblings know intimately the nature of being deemed an outcast. And, the clarion call for LGBTQIA+ advocacy is reverberating from state capitol rotundas, dinner tables, city streets, and church pews. With more than 547 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in this year’s (2024) legislative session, our proactive response, now more than ever, needs to be love OUT LOUD.

Love is Louder: Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD is a campaign faithfully supporting the spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of LGBTQIA+ siblings by equipping faith communities with resources and tools for just action and care. GSJM launches this campaign intentionally in Pride Month to honor, center, and celebrate the personhood of queer siblings.

This campaign features:

• Advocacy 101 webinars
• Quarterly Toolkit Releases
• Love is Louder: Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD T-Shirt supporting churches desiring to start a Discretionary Fund for LGBTQIA+ care
• Love is Louder: Love Your Neighbor OUT LOUD Worship & Organizing

Our first toolkit release features Communal Care for Trans & Non-Binary siblings and within the introduction we start with Psalm 139. To begin the journey of communal care for LGBTQIA+ siblings, we must remember that each of us harbors the Imago Dei within and it is together we tend to one another and help mirror love OUT LOUD for who God calls us to be and continues to form us into being.

Psalm 139 reverberates a wisdom of remembrance for all bodies and how God took intricate time creating each of us. May we remember that we are children of God and Creator makes no mistakes in our unique formation and so let’s show up bearing witness to one another and choosing love.

Even in the dim lit moments, I deeply believe our collective liberation and freedom is infinitely possible. I find this belief within scripture and our living bodies scriptures which offer evidence of resilience, remembrance, active justice, love, tenderness and care.

Let’s write new stories together. Narratives that showcase hope, love, and Pride for who God created you to be and who we are and can be together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachael Ward (they/them) is the Team Lead & Minister for Gender & Sexuality Justice Ministries for the United Church of Christ. In addition, Rachael Ward is the Executive Director for UCC HIV & AIDS Network (UCAN).

View this and other columns on the UCC’s Witness for Justice page.
Donate to support Witness for Justice.
Click here to download the bulletin insert.