Alka's Angle

Some of you may be aware of the vandalism experienced by the Wicker Park Lutheran Church recently (thank you Nick for bringing the story to our attention). The pride flags that were hung from their building were torn once and defaced the second time. The pastor of the church, Rev. Glombicki however is “determined not to let hate win. "That's what our faith teaches us," he said. "That it's not just about hate and what others do, it's about continuing to respond in love." 

This week is the 50th anniversary of The StoneWall Riot at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, against the police brutality towards the gay, lesbian, trans and queer community and a year later on June 28th 1970, to commemorate and remember the Stonewall riots, Pride Marches were organized in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Marsha ‘Pay It No Mind’ Johnson, was one of the activists who refused to allow the police brutality and stood for the rights of trans person and others. Since then a lot has changed and yet nothing seems to be different. 

Some of you may be aware of the ban on rap music at the Progress Bar, that has since been removed, that started or rather increased conversations around the issues of ‘racism’ in the Boystown/Lakeview area. An internal email that accidentally leaked into the community said, “Our goal is to promote a positive, happy, energetic, upbeat and most importantly... a fun vibe.”

 It is June! It is PRIDE month! It is already the middle of June -- and we can see signs of preparation all around us. This is also the month when most United Methodist Annual Conferences have their Annual sessions -- we had our session June 2-4, 2019. Paula Roderick is our member of Annual Conference, so she was there. She will be giving a report of her experience soon. Here are a few more things that I want to share with you:

Some of you followed the recent gathering in Minneapolis of people who drafted and supported the Simple Plan. The meeting was called to center the voices of POC+Q+T persons, but allies were welcome and their presence was appreciated. The gathering was to bring together all the POC+Q+T voices to see how we wanted to move forward in this denomination that has clearly lost its focus and vision and even place in many committed Wesleyan people.