Bishop Yvette Flunder to Keynote Faith & Family LGBTQ Power Summit
Four-day gathering to bring together people of all faiths and progressive secular people to create positive change
SALT LAKE CITY, UT, August 21, 2015 — Renowned welcoming and affirming faith leader Bishop Yvette Flunder will provide the keynote address at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s upcoming Faith & Family LGBTQ Power Summit, October 20 through October 23, 2015 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Bishop Flunder is a leader who personifies the values that are at the heart of our gathering — the glorious diversity of our faith traditions and a power that’s radical, prophetic, and intersectional,” said Rev. Rodney McKenzie, National LGBTQ Task Force Faith Director.
Bishop Flunder is a native San Franciscan and third generation preacher with roots in the Church of God in Christ. She is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and holds both masters and doctorate degrees in Ministry from the Pacific School of Religion and the San Francisco Theological Seminary, respectively. In 2003, she was appointed Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, a multi-denominational coalition of over 56 churches and faith-based organizations from all over the world.
The Faith & Family LGBTQ Power Summit is a four-day gathering that, through the lens of racial and gender justice at the intersection of reproductive freedom, will provide fellowship, inspiration, skills, capacity building and concrete strategies to explore how faith and the practice of radical welcome can build grassroots power. The Power Summit comes at a time when “religious liberty” is being misused and redefined by politicians to justify discrimination nationwide. It also comes just a few days before the World Congress of Families meets in the United States for the first time — a group that has a clear anti-LGBTQ agenda and track record of exporting and promoting homophobia and transphobia though legislation across the world.
“Today, we do hear the voices of people of faith who welcome LGBTQ people and their families. And, it is drowned out by a chorus of powerful politicians who manipulate cherished, deeply-held religious beliefs to impose discrimination. By creating statewide legislation their beliefs, views and prejudices regarding other people will be made into law. That’s why we are working hard to raise voices of welcoming and affirming people of all faiths to defeat efforts to redefine religious exemptions in legislation that would actually weaken the important protections these laws contain.”
The Power Summit’s worship, plenaries, and workshops will culminate in thirty days of local and national actions and media exposure. Attendees will be equipped to mobilize in their home communities for LGBTQ families — especially transgender and gender non-conforming people, people of color, and young people.
“I look forward to welcoming people from every part of our nation to our gathering in Salt Lake City. Together we can ensure that, as a movement, we’re strong and resilient enough to face the challenges and opportunities ahead. Our opponents are trying to push back progress – on equality and true religious liberty. We can’t let them win,” McKenzie said.
For more information about the summit, please visit this page of our website.
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CONTACT:
Jorge Amaro
Media and Public Relations Director
213-842-7564
jamaro@thetaskforce.org
