CLGS

In order to fulfill its mission to provide effective research and educational programing for clergy, seminarians, church laity, LGBT activists, and the general public on the history and current controversies concerning the status of LGBT people within communities of faith, the Center is actively involved in community building partnerships among LGBT people active in various faith traditions. Such community building is especially vital for those in faith traditions like the Black Church and the Asian/Pacific Islander and Latino/a (both Protestant and Catholic) communities in which open advocacy is often rare and frequently made even more difficult by the social history or cultural particularity of minority status.

Since the issues faced by LGBT people in these racial and ethnic minority communities are different from many of the issues found in white mainstream religious traditions, the strategies developed in white faith communities to combat discrimination are often ineffective or inappropriate for use in minority communities. The types of research and the kinds of educational programs most needed in racial and ethnic minority faith communities are best determined by LGBT people and their supporters within those communities themselves.

In listening to the concerns of a number of local LGBT leaders in the African American and Asian/Pacific Islander communities particularly, the Center established the Roundtable Project, in which both local and national leaders from each racial/ethnic community meet together to discuss possible strategies for outreach and social change. The face-to-face nature of these roundtables is an essential community-building part of the overall goal of the project. Along with the roundtable meetings, the Center hosts on this website further virtual discussions by the roundtable members and any others they wish to invite.