@mikemeic Looks nice. Happy birthday #QuakerRainbow! 🌈😊

2/3
Susan brought her Concern about equality between gay & straight couples in regard to religious marriage to Manchester Quakers’ Preparative Meeting in November 1986. It was supported & sent on to Hardshaw East Monthly Meeting, which appointed a special monthly meeting to consider it.’ (From David Balmires’ memoir ‘Pushing at the Frontier of Change')
The Minute from that meeting went to Britain Yearly Meeting for Sufferings in July 1987, & Susan spoke to it. (cont’d)
#Quaker #QuakerRainbow

1/3
From the #Quaker Tapestry Exhibition in Kendal, news for Rainbow Friends. A new panel is being designed & stitched, recording the Concern of Susan Hartshorne, a lawyer, in Manchester Mount St Meeting. In 1980s she was concerned about the inequality between gay & straight couples. As a magistrate Susan had put a proposal to the Manchester Bench that the age of consent should be the same for gay & straight individuals (ie 16). It was unanimously agreed in March 1986. (cont’d) #QuakerRainbow

It’s a new day #today, & I continue to reflect on (& feel challenged by) last night’s Swarthmoor lecture by Esther Loukin, who spoke from her experience of life as a disabled person, & how she has tried thru her activism, to bring about change, as well as the diversity of tactics needed to achieve change…. like keep complaining (tho not using the word!) when equality law is not being followed.
#quaker #swarthmoor #Friends #equality #disabled #QuakerRainbow

It’s a big day for me #today, unused as I am to some things many urban-dwellers take for granted: a train journey (to London) & being in gathering of 100s of people.
It’s British #quaker Yearly Meeting.
The hope (says the program) is it will help to:
• Release our energy
• Revitalise our communities
• Follow the leadings of the Spirit, to build a better world with integrity, & recognise & support truth in the wider world.
A big agenda….mmmm

#bym #quakers #Friends #QuakerRainbow

#today It's a dull, cold day, & I'm getting ready for tomorrow's journey south, into England, to London for #quaker Yearly Meeting. I hate the packing for these things, so let's focus on what's to look forward to - like meeting up with Rainbow Friends - over the rainbow 🌈 - that's where you'll find me!!

#QuakerRainbow #Friends #YearlyMeeting #rainbow

3/3
In 1660, it was Margaret Fell who addressed Charles Il: 'We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love and unity; it is our desire that others' feet may walk in the same.'

#QuakerRainbow #Quakers

1/3
Yesterday a delegation of #Quakers from Britain & Ireland - among them two LGBTQ+ Friends - exercised a historic right to address Charles III. They thanked him for speaking out on the environment, saying that a just solution to the climate crisis requires disrupting existing economic systems. Leasa Lambert, of the Black, Brown & People of Colour Quaker Fellowship, read the address, & told Charles that Quaker communities welcome trans & gender diverse people.
#QuakerRainbow
📷 lan Jones

#QuakerRainbow is a community of #queer UK #Friends recently invited to join a delegation of #quakers to address Charles III. We did discern in #quaker fashion (!) & agree to it. It’s a sensitive issue bec of #quakers historic testimony to the equality, dignity & majesty all human beings, born of their suffering in 17C at the hands of powerful/privileged men. So QR will send a trans Friend as delegate, to embody our call for all to be able to live freely together, as equals, of equal dignity.

#introduction This is me for you!

Derbyshire born, married a Scot, byw yng Nghymru (living in Wales)
sometimes miss city life (Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester)
#linguist, #francophile, #humanist #quaker #GayGardener

Concerns:
#ClimateChange
#TransRightsAreHumanRights

Loves:
#whippets
#butterflies
grow your own food
all kinds of music from #shostakovich to #supremes to #SamSmith
#languages
dysgu cymraeg
board games
#Bridge
progressive politics

#gyo #BeardedGay #woke #quakerism #QuakerRainbow 🌈

#introduction This is me for you!

Derbyshire born, married a Scot, byw yng Nghymru (living in Wales)
#linguist, #francophile, #humanist #quaker

Concerns:
climate change
#transrightsarehumanrights

Loves (in no particular order):
whippets
butterflies
growing our own food
music of all kinds from #shostakovich to #supremes to #samsmith
#linguistics /languages
dysgu cymraeg
board games, Bridge
progressive politics

#gaygardener #gyo #whippet #beardedgay #woke #quakerism #quakerrainbow 🌈

#introduction This is me for you!
Derbyshire born, married a Scot, byw yng Nghymru (living in Wales)
Was - Latin/modern languages student, teacher, cleric
Now - francophile, non-religious, humanist #quaker
Loves
whippets
butterflies
growing our own food
music of all kinds from #shostakovich to #supremes to #samsmith
linguistics/languages
dysgu cymraeg
board games, playing Bridge
Progressive politics
#gaygardener #gyo #whippet #beardedgay #humanist #woke #quakerism #quakerrainbow #francophile

@davidabbottbris that’s a good description David of how Friends’ Meetings work - I hadn’t experienced anything like it in all my years before! It was good to see you there today, & yes the clerks did a good job. At the top of the list of what makes a good Meeting for me is the silence, then the freedom from having a particular spirituality/religion imposed (I’m a happy non-theist myself) #quaker #quakermeeting #friends #quakerrainbow #queerfriends #queerquakers #britainyearlymeeting

How lovely to attend my first Quaker Rainbow zoom meeting. I'm re-remembering different ways of talking and listening. Not ways in which the goal is to win on a point, or to defeat another view. I like the focus on discernment, of sitting with difference, of not having to speak for speaking's sake. #quaker #quakerrainbow #quakermeeting #queer