A big shout out to Barbara Allen, Chair of the Welcoming Congregation, who has put a wonderful Pride service together for this Sunday! We will also return to Facebook Live-streaming so that more people can find us who would take comfort in our message of service, hope, community, and justice. If you have concerns about privacy, you may turn off your camera and change your name to anonymous in the Zoom controls.

Our worship leaders this Sunday include the Pierone family who will sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Joanna and Chase Parker (Joanna is also singing!), Kate Eales who is sharing her wonderful video of children talking about what LGBTQ means to them, Antoinette Scully, Jon Bassinger-Flores, our UUCSC Choir who is singing a new virtual choir piece, and the Sacramento Gay Men’s Choir has given us permission to end with one of their songs!

LGBTQ Pride is about celebrating our sacred right to be who we are, that no one else can tell us who we are. Whether our pronouns are they/them, she/her or he/him, or whether we identify as a trans man or trans woman, as gender-queer, non-binary or straight, bisexual or poly-amorous, we all have a right to claim these identities with no ill consequence – no discrimination, no judgement, no physical or emotional harm.

As trans people have been forcibly removed from serving in our US military, we also have a moral imperative to especially advocate for our trans community members. This looks like having conversations with our friends and family about it, educating folks about why it matters, why we are still in a human rights fight in 2020, and what they can do to help.

Happy Pride 2020 to one and all! We may be stuck at home, but let your freedom colors fly!

See you Sunday!

Hannah