Welcoming Congregation

Our Vision Statement

This is a vision statement for the welcoming congregation team. It is a rough draft and has not yet been sent to be approved by the congregation. It is something we still want to share and work on with everyone as we move through this renewal process.

  • To build a home where people of all identities, orientations, and abilities know they are empowered to be their authentic selves, and that they belong in all our gatherings, small and large, physical and virtual.

  • To create a community that seeks to be of service, by accommodating for all needs and being inclusive in all that we do.

  • To foster a willingness to challenge ourselves and to change, with the knowledge that if we approach disagreements in love, difference of identity is a bridge to understanding, not a barrier.

  • To intentionally support efforts in our own community and the community at large to dismantling systems of oppression.

Representation and the Flag:

What Does It Mean for Us?


In the past weeks, we have looked at the origins of the pride flag and changes that have been made over time. This week we will be looking more in depth at the conversations surrounding the newer flags.

We often champion the LGBTQ+ community for its inclusivity, but it’s no secret that even in these “welcoming” spaces, racism and transphobia still exist. How to tackle this problem has been up for much debate. One way people are bringing attention to the matter is through modifying the traditional pride flag. At this time, three flags are gaining the most traction in the community.

Philadelphia Pride Flag

The Philadelphia Pride Flag adds a brown and black stripe to the traditional pride flag. The city of Philadelphia raised this flag for Pride in 2017. It was done to call attention to the city’s problems with racial discrimination in gay bars. The flag was controversial and received much push back. Here are some of the arguments made against the flag:

  • Adding the black and brown stirpes was a divisive move on a symbol that is supposed to be all encompassing and unifying

  • It was discriminatory to include black and brown stripes, but not white

  • The black and brown stripes were reductive to skin tone and called into question how Asian or Native Americans would be represented

  • While a nice gesture, the flag did not actually do anything to address or solve the real issues facing marginalized groups in the community

Those who supported the flag felt that it was a good first step in the right direction, and that a lot of the push back on the flag showed exactly why it was needed in the first place. Many also felt the flag provided much needed representation in a community that is mostly seen as white, middle class, and male.

Progress Pride Flag

The Progress Pride Flag expands on the Philadelphia Pride Flag by adding light blue, pink, and white; the colors of the Transgender Pride Flag. The added elements point right to signify moving forward. The black stripe was also given the additional meaning of “those living with AIDS and the stigma, and those no longer living.”

Concerns were raised for this flag as well:

  • The white space was too large on a flag that is supposed to be bringing attention to people of color

  • Many trans people do not associate their transness with the color white and felt it was too prominent as well

  • The added meaning to the black stripe was unnecessary and disrespectful when the color for HIV/AIDS awareness and advocacy has traditionally been red

  • The design was very similar and appropriative of the Puerto Rico Pride Flag

Many people welcomed the addition of the trans flag since trans people, especially trans women of color, face the most discrimination and violence in the community.

New Pride Flag

The New Pride Flag makes a few changes to the Progress Pride Flag in an attempt to address some of the concerns stated before. It centers the black, brown, and transgender colors, while calling less attention to the color white. Cutting across the traditional flag colors was also meant to represent how these communities intersect with one another.

The heated debate around these flags makes one thing clear: there is a great desire and need for better representation, intersectionality, and inclusivity in the LGBTQ+ community. These flags can be a small gesture to recognize the problems that exist, but without the real action to change. These flags can also symbolize a call to action and awareness, to motivate us to discuss and do better serving those marginalized in our community. The difference is up to us.

Thank you for reading and learning with us this October. We will be posting news and articles in the future, so please keep an eye out!

Designs of Pride

Continuing our LGBT History Month series with some variations of the Pride flag through the years and their intentions.

Original Pride Flag
Designer: Gilbert Baker, 1978

Eight stripes: Hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity, and violet for spirit.

The rainbow pattern was also meaningful. The spectrum of colors stand in for the spectrum of identity and experience within the LGBT+ community.

One of the original flags also included a corner block with tie-dyed stars arranged in circles. The starry corner meant to evoke the American flag. This was the first flag of its kind, and the creators wanted to be certain that everyone who saw it understood that it was a flag and a symbol, not just a decoration.

Classic Pride Flag
Designer: Gilbert Baker, 1978

Baker dropped the hot pink and turquoise stripes from the design shortly after creating the first flags. A shortage of pink dye eliminated the pink stripe, and the turquoise stripe fell because a symmetrical flag was easier to display on local lampposts at the time. It was important to Baker for the new flag to be widely available and visible to the community, and design concessions helped make that happen.

Scroll down to read more about Baker and his flag in our first post!

Bisexual Pride Flag
Designer: Michael Page, 1998

The pink stripe stands for same-sex attraction, the blue stripe for different-sex attraction, and the purple stripe for attraction across and outside the gender spectrum.

This was one of the first identity-specific Pride flags. Page intended it to increase visibility of bisexuals and bisexuality in the LGBT+ community and beyond.

Trans Pride Flag
Designer: Monica Helms, 1999

The blue stripes stand for baby boys, the pink for baby girls, and the white at center for those who are trans, agender, genderfluid, or transitioning.

Navy veteran Monica Helms designed this flag to fly correctly in any direction- "signifying us finding correctness in our lives" (Helms).

Philadelphia POC-Inclusive Flag

More Color More Pride, 2017

Added black and brown stripes to the classic Pride flag, to indicate prioritizing the needs of black and brown people. The flag was in part a response to racist incidents in gay bars.

This flag was created as part of the More Color More Pride campaign of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs. Amber Hikes, executive director, sees ways the city has let down intersectional marginalized communities, and hopes the new stripes will show they've chosen "to start very intentionally on a path of healing". Here is the MCMP campaign video.

Diversity Flag
Designer: Gilbert Baker, 2017

Gilbert Baker also updated the classic flag in 2017, shortly before his death, adding a lavender stripe to indicate diversity. Despite Baker's place in the movement, this design didn't really gain traction like his original had.

Progressive Flag
Designer: Daniel Quasar, 2018

Quasar liked the Philadelphia flag concept, but wanted to layer in more meaning. He added a 5-striped chevron to place greater emphasis on inclusion and progression. The black and brown stripes stand for marginalized communities of color, and for those living with and lost to AIDS. The pink, blue, and white stripes incorporate the trans pride flag. These added elements point right to indicate forward movement.

Quasar left the original pattern intact to preserve its original meaning, but embraces the idea of a Pride flag for the present moment. "The 6 stripe LGBTQ flag should be separated from the newer stripes because of their difference in meaning, as well as to shift focus and emphasis to what is important in our current community climate," says Quasar. "We still have forward movement to make. there is still work to be done. I wanted to highlight that." More info here.

New Pride Flag
Designer: Julia Feliz, 2018

The diagonal stripes on this version are intended to illustrate the way transness and racial identities intersect with the LGBT community as a whole. It centers black and brown stripes as a way to honor and "center those like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major, and Victoria Cruz- Trans Black and Brown Women/Marginalized Genders/People of Color - who led the way for Pride/the modern LGBTQIA+ movement and are currently the most targeted by homophobia and transphobia."

Feliz created this flag in direct response to Quasar's flag. Feliz felt that this design better acknowledges the contributions of trans WOC and their continued unique vulnerability within the movement. Says Feliz, "We must center people in the most vulnerable positions, to achieve liberation for all." More info here.

Thank you for reading! Join next week for the final chapter in our LGBT History Month series, an extension of this week's discussion with a focus on representation.

More resources:

An exploration of Pride flags from Emory University

Philly's Pride Flag Makes Waves Around the World

National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day is an annual celebration of "coming out", or claiming one's identity in the LGBTQ+ community. It's a day for out members of the community to reaffirm their identities, and for those who have not yet come out to feel the support of those who have and consider doing so themselves.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

This holiday commemorates a wildly successful march in a difficult decade for gay rights. From 1981-1987, the growing AIDS crisis went largely unacknowledged by the U.S. government. And in 1986, the Supreme Court decided in Bowers v. Hardwick that gay sex was a crime, even between consenting adults in a private home. These, among other issues, drew hundreds of thousands of people to the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 11, 1987.

One year later, two gay rights leaders felt the community needed a different kind of activism to sustain momentum. Psychologist Robert Eichberg and organizer Jean O'Leary observed that anti-gay prejudice and support for anti-gay legislation partly stemmed from a belief that those affected were few and far away. But the March had proven how many there were. If community members used the power of their own stories locally to influence their friends and family, they reasoned, injustices would be much harder for the country to ignore.

With this in mind, they instituted National Coming Out Day on the anniversary of the March. Their goal was to make coming out a joyful event and to show that LGBT+ people exist everywhere. Today, National Coming Out Day is celebrated around the world- and more people than ever are aware they know someone who is LGBT+ and is affected by anti-gay legislation.

Coming out can be personally empowering and a political tool, but it can also be difficult. The "closet" protects many LGBT+ community members, especially those who are dependent on unsupportive family or living in a hostile environment. Each person is the expert on whether, when, and to whom coming out is right for them. What's more, the concept of coming out is not perfect: the assumption that everyone is heterosexual is what requires people to come out in the first place. The more we recognize and counter biases like this, the easier it will be for people of all sexualities to support each other.

Check out the resources below for more! Next week, we'll be returning to our LGBT History Month series with variations of the Pride flag over time.

Early Origins of the Pride Flag

To celebrate LGBT History Month, this post is the first in a three part series on the history of the pride flag.

Photo: Gilbert Baker in front of one of his pride flags.

The pride flag was designed not that long ago in 1978 by Gilbert Baker. Baker grew up in Kansas, where he often felt like outcast in the conservative area. Baker was drafted in 1970 and, as a medic, was stationed in San Francisco at a time when the gay rights movement was flourishing. Baker became involved as an activist, using his artistic talents to support gay rights and anti-war protests. On several occasions, Baker had been urged by Harvey Milk (one of the first openly gay politicians to hold office in the U.S.) and others to create a symbol for the movement. At the time, the pink triangle was the main symbol for gay sexuality. Because of the pink triangle’s dark history with Nazism in World War II, Baker and his friends wanted a new symbol that was more positive for the community.

Inspired by the 1976 Bicentennial, Baker realized that a flag was just what the community needed. A flag was something you could stand and rally behind. The idea for the rainbow came from nature and the culture of the times. Baker loved that it encompassed all the colors and came from nature. It could symbolically represent inclusion and that sexuality is not only natural, but a human right.

Baker and his friends hand made the first pride flags for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25th. They included eight colored stripes, each with its own meaning. Hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic/art, indigo for serenity, and violet for spirit. Usage of the flag slowly spread around the world. The flag especially became popularized in 1994, when Baker designed a mile long rainbow flag to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the stonewall riots.

Photo: Replica of one of the original pride flags. Handmade by Gilbert Baker.

Thank you for reading! For more information on Gilbert Baker and the origins of the pride flag, check out the articles and videos below.

Next week on October 11th, we will be celebrating National Coming Out Day. On October 18th, we will continue with LGBT History Month by taking a look at different versions of the pride flag and how it has changed through time.

We'd love to hear from you! Give us your feedback and suggestions at: welcomingcongregation@mmuus.org