UUFES's Progress Pride Rainbow Flag is a welcome sight to many people in north central New Hampshire.
This fellowship strives to be a safe and welcome spiritual home to UUFES members and friends who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer. A Welcoming Congregations Committee looks for ways to extend an inclusive attitude and welcome to all who cross our threshold.
In 1999 the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) officially recognized UUFES as a Welcoming Congregation and renewed that status in the early 2000s upon UUFES's completion of a multi-step process and the establishment of an annual calendar of supporting events. The Association states:
We know that religious spaces haven’t always been welcoming places for all people, especially when it comes to gender and sexuality. We are out to change that.
For 25 years we have worked hard to make sure lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are full members of our faith communities. Being welcoming means striving for radical inclusion, and creating spaces that honor every part of our identities, backgrounds, and experiences.
ASP Affirming Spaces Project
UUFES proudly continues to be a Community Partner of the NH Affirming Spaces Project. The ASP webpage lists area business and community agency partners - UUFES is its only faith-based partner. Imagine that....
The new ASP window sticker on our front door identifies UUFES as a welcoming, affirming, safe place open to people of all genders and sexual orientations:
The Affirming Spaces Project (ASP) is a Northern New England-based organization dedicated to improving local communities through the development and maintenance of welcoming and affirming environments for patrons, visitors, and employees of all genders. ASP was founded in New Hampshire by a small group of local residents who share a common goal: improving our communities and the daily lives of all residents. ASP is expanding to cover more areas in New England but keeps our founding location at the forefront of our thinking. As harmful legislation continues to be passed, welcoming and affirming spaces for people of all genders are becoming even more critical.
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How Do We Practice Welcome?
Welcome is a spiritual practice. It takes constant doing and stretching for our welcome to grow. We practice welcome in our congregations by:
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Promoting inclusivity and using inclusive language
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Creating welcoming spaces, including gender neutral bathrooms
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Saying our welcome out loud and in print and online
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Building our welcoming skills as congregational leaders and greeters
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Deepening our understanding of identities that differ from our own
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Offering sexuality education for the entire lifespan
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Preventing discrimination in the process of hiring a minister
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Engaging in justice ministry in our communities and the wider world
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Regularly engaging in Welcoming Congregation programming and ministry.