We are pleased to announce that the Unitarian Church of Marlboro and Hudson voted UNANIMOUSLY to be recognized as a Welcoming Congregation on Sunday May 2nd, 2004 during our annual meeting.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank all of you who took the time to come to our workshops and get involved in the issues associated with becoming a Welcoming Congregation. This was a wonderful process and I thank you for letting me be a part of it.

So many of you have expressed that you felt that UCMH was already a welcoming community and, I wholeheartedly agree. When we talked about going through this process, a few years ago, we talked about how this issue could focus us as a church and better define who we are to ourselves and our community. I believe we achieved that in spades!

We are not, however, ever done with this process. We need to assure all who come to our church that this is a topic for open discussion at any time and that all comments and concerns are welcomed and will be addressed within our congregation. This ties to our second third and fifth UU principles:

2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

Next steps:

The Welcoming Congregation Committee will be compiling a list of actions we took on our journey to becoming welcoming. This list will be sent to the UUA’s office of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Concerns. This is the request of the OBGLTC to let them know of the “good work” we have done toward this initiative. They will then send the congregation a letter of congratulations along with a poster that proclaims that we are a Welcoming Congregation.

We need to decide how our congregation will address BGLT social concerns

Offer more workshops on an “as requested” basis

As a congregation, we need to move toward embracing BGLT people and advocate their issues.