The unintended subtext of “All are welcome”

There’s a much passed-around recent article about the lazy and misleading habit of churches that advertise themselves under the banner “All Are Welcome.” It’s worth a read. (“3 Ways ‘All Are Welcome’ Is Hurting the Church” by Lutheran pastor Angela Denker. Sojo.net.)

In my neighborhood, there’s a church that has an actual banner; the slogan is an added stripe to a rainbow flag: a now-passé way to wordlessly telegraph that gay-etc. people are the “all” who are welcome. And it’s this phenomenon is what I wanted to write about.

There was a time when deliberately allowing a lesbian-etc. to sit with you in church was daring. It may be so daring in some parts of the country, but I’m bold to say that even in those far-flung outposts, a rainbow flag isn’t going to pass muster.

For one thing, there’s the incongruity of saying “all are welcome” and intimating that bisexuals-etc. are the “all” through the inclusion of a rainbow-striped emblem. I’ve long wondered — my being gay and all — is it necessary to have to include everyone just to include me?  It’s as if everyone else would have been welcome first, and that’s not much of an invitation. Plus, I resent the coded language. It’s the language of the closet. It invites with a wink and a nod. But the code’s been broken, and it won’t fool anyone who has a hump about gays.

Second, it invites without making a commitment. Gay-etc. people are welcome to sit in the pews and give money, presumably. But what about getting married? Speaking of one’s friends and relationships plainly? Serving in positions of leadership, if otherwise qualified, including ordained leadership?

Some welcoming churches cannot, because of their rules, be as accommodating as they like. Which is a halfway promise. Telling strangers that we would be better hosts if only the national jurisdiction were only more accommodating forces one or both parties to think they’re fools.

So, a word to the Unitarian Universalists. These impediments shouldn’t apply to us. We are governed locally, have a track record of considered inclusion of gay-etc. people, and have a non-token number of transexual-etc. ministers. But we seem to undervalue this mature cultural development. (The focus on marriage parity, but little on our internal accomplishments, and the diminished state of Interweave come to mind.) Perhaps because we have a cultural value of the radical (or so we think) and the new (like everyone else) the accomplishments pale.

We, that is particular churches, should use more than three words — an easy lift for UUs — and state plainly that have made a deliberate decision and have an established history and support structure to include lesbian-etc. persons in all roles and in all ways — and to number the big ones — while pledging support to continue and improve this witness, even if it is or becomes unpopular.

Might be wordy and less snappy than “all are welcome” but that’s better than a feel-good slogan that says so little that it hides what should be a point of pride.