Posts Tagged ‘api’

Pan-Asian Blessing and Celebration of API LGBT Families

Clergy

Clergy Blessing of API LGBT Families

October 11, 2008 at 3:00am to 6:00am
An Interfaith Event on National Coming Out Day
hosted by the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs.

In Asian & Pacific Islander cultures, family is important. And to us, family means extended family. Family is inclusive. At the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs, we understand an API LGBT family to include any family in which a member is Asian or Pacific Islander and a member is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

If you are an API LGBT couple, or any individual or family group that identifies as all or part of an API LGBT family – if you are a straight parent of a API LGBT child, if you are a daughter, son, sister, brother, auntie, uncle, cousin, grandparent, church-family member, longtime co-worker, or neighbor – and you love and support your LGBT family member(s), we invite you & your family to join us for a blessing and celebration of your family.

Our celebratory interfaith blessing will take place at the multidenominational chapel at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and will be conducted by an alliance of API religious leaders of various faiths.

Come join us to bless and celebrate API LGBT families!
For more information, see www.netrj.org.

Interfaith Blessing & Celebration of LGBT Families (pdf)

Asian Faith Leaders Support LGBTs

PRESS CONFERENCE:
ASIAN FAITH LEADERS
Announcement of Support is a Historic First

SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007 – Several prominent Asian American faith leaders in the Bay Area announce their public support of lesbian and gay families and equality at a press conference in San Francisco Chinatown on Thursday, May 31, 2007, from 10:30-11:30 am, at Chinese for Affirmative Action (17 Walter Lum Place, nearby Portsmouth Square), to coincide with end of API Heritage Month and the start of LGBT Pride Month. Confirmed speakers for the event include: Rev. Calvin Chinn, Rev. Jeffrey Kuan, Rev. John Oda, Rev. Deborah Lee, Rev. Michael Yoshii, Rev Elizabeth Leung. The event will mark the first time a coalition of Asian American faith leaders speaks out in support of lesbian and gay families and equality.

In God’s House

In God’s House: Asian American
  Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church

Asian American lesbians and gays and their parents and allies have been largely invisible and silent in Christian churches. Some Asian American churches avoid the issue for fear of division and conflict. Other Asian American church leaders have condemned homosexuality and publicly protested against same-sex marriage.

Yet there are many gay and lesbian Asian American Christians and their families, quiet and invisible, in churches across the country. Where are their stories? What are their experiences? This honest and thought-provoking film invites you to hear personal stories which have long been unheard.  It tells a story that those in the church need to hear: that of Asian American Christian lesbian and gay people and their parents.

Oneida Chi, a devout young adult Chinese American in an evangelical Christian church, speaks of her struggle with the discovery of her own sexual orientation and her search for self-acceptance and religious community. Husband and wife Harold and Ellen Kameya, active leaders in their Japanese American church, tell the story of their shock and confusion when their beloved daughter first came out, of the isolation and alienation they felt in their church, and of the importance of a church community in their Christian journey to grow in understanding, courage and love for their daughter.  The Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, an immigrant Asian pastor, seeks to fulfill Jesus’ message of justice and love for all people as he speaks out and supports the full acceptance and affirmation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender  people in the church.

All four are church-loving and God-loving Christians. And yet they struggle to find kindred spirits and their recognized place in God’s house.

This film invites you to listen to their stories of courage, inspiration, and renewed faith, and to hear the importance of supporting LGBT people as important members of our Asian American families and churches.

Filmmaker Lina Hoshino and the PANA Institute’s project on Civil Liberties and Faith present In God’s House: Asian American Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church. This short film highlights the spiritual journeys of four Asian American Christians who discover that lesbians and gays are not just “others,” but loved ones in their own families.

For more information, please see: http://www.ingodshouse.

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