If the only Quaker you have met is the smirking old man with a wide-brimmed hat on an oatmeal box, you may be surprised to learn that followers of the religious tradition known as the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, made groundbreaking contributions to the advancement of gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights. Between 1946 and 1972, Quakers operated the first social service organization for gay people in the United States, wrote the first public and positive evaluation of gay and lesbian sexuality from a religious assembly, helped organize and marched openly in some of the first gay pride parades. They also wrote the first public statement by any religious group in support of bisexuality and led some of the most influential gay liberation organizations of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the image of a colonial gentleman with an envious appetite for fibrous breakfast foods reinforces a misleading caricature of Quakers as culturally and politically conservative traditionalists, similar to the Amish or Mennonites. While there are some theological similarities and historical connections between Quakers and the other “peace churches,” many Quaker communities are more socially progressive and accepting of LGBTIAQ+ people.

This exhibit showcases the important ways that Quakers, who also call themselves “Friends,” took action in support of gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights during the mid-twentieth century. A short primer on the diversity of Quaker views on sexuality is offered first to help readers unfamiliar with the variety of Quaker traditions.

Quakerism is a theologically, culturally, and geographically diverse religion with historical roots in seventeenth century England. The largest population of Quakers in the world is in Kenya and about three times as many Quakers live in Africa as live in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe combined. Many Quakers identify as Christians, and Quakerism is historically a Christian religion, but large populations of Quakers in North America, Europe, and Australia identify as agnostic, atheist, non-theist, humanist, and/or universalist. Across geographies, all of the various Quaker traditions express a belief in nonviolence, human equality, and the universal endowment of “that of God” in everyone.[1] Quakers tend to admonish religious doctrines and they lack a central authority that can speak on behalf of all Friends. Quaker appreciation for decentralization and egalitarian decision-making is expressed by how Quaker congregations are organized. Most Quaker congregations in the liberal tradition call themselves “monthly meetings” because they conduct their congregational business once a month. Monthly meetings in a particular region are brought together annually by an association of Quaker congregations known as a yearly meeting. In a religious tradition that lacks central authority, pronouncements from Quaker yearly meetings are often the best indicators of cultural and attitudinal shifts among large populations of Quakers.

In simplest terms, Quakers can be categorized into three main branches: liberal, conservative, and evangelical. Liberal Quakers are typically the most accepting of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people among the three main branches of Friends. Liberal Quakers are known for their “unprogrammed” quiet worship.[2] This form of worship was invented by the first generation of Quakers in the seventeenth century and is characterized by extended periods of quiet sitting, when anyone present is permitted and encouraged to offer spontaneous “vocal ministry,” also known as a “message.” Liberal Friends do not often cite the Bible in their spoken ministry during worship or reference Jesus’s resurrection as playing an important role in their lives.

Conservative Friends also practice “unprogrammed” quiet worship, but their theological views make them distinct from liberal Friends. Conservative Quakers more often reference the Bible as an important source of spiritual authority and they regard Jesus’s death and resurrection as a central part of their faith.

Evangelical Quakerism emerged in the nineteenth century, when some conservative Quaker communities appointed pastors and adopted the worship practices of Protestant traditions. Evangelical Quakers practice “programmed” Quaker worship, which involves liturgical music and a prepared sermon offered by a professional minister. Some evangelical Friends practice outward sacraments like water baptism and the consumption of bread and wine for communion. Evangelical Quakers hold the teachings of the Bible in high regard, and they believe that Jesus’s death and resurrection play an important role in their lives. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, conservative and evangelical Friends sent missionaries around the world and established the first Quaker churches in Africa, South America, and the Middle East, which is why we see large populations of evangelical Quakers in Africa and Bolivia today.

Conservative and evangelical Friends call their congregations and houses of worship churches, rather than meetings. These churches are also coordinated and connected with one another through a system of yearly meetings. Yearly meetings typically associate themselves with larger Quaker organizations, such as the Friends General Conference (FGC), which represents liberal Quakers in North America, the Friends United Meeting (FUM), which represents mostly conservative Friends and some evangelical Quaker communities worldwide, and Evangelical Friends International (EFI).

The majority of Quakers are part of local congregations, yearly meetings, and larger associations of Quakers that have either communicated ambivalence about supporting gay and lesbian people or condemned homosexuality as inconsistent with Christian teachings. In 1988, the conservative FUM publicly renounced homosexuality. Three years later it implemented a policy against hiring lesbian and gay people. Many Quaker yearly meetings affiliated with FUM felt morally compromised by this decision. Some chose to suspend their financial contributions to FUM but retained their membership, and others chose to disassociate from FUM. Similar debates about homosexuality have led to schisms in many longstanding associations of American Quakerism. In 2015, the Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) “released” one Quaker congregation in response to its public recognition of the “spiritual gifts” of gay and lesbian people. After two years of rising mistrust between the NWYM and several other monthly meetings, a group of about eighty Quakers formed the LGBTIAQ+ affirming Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting (SCYM).[3] In some cases, tensions between Friends in North America concerning homosexuality cannot be reconciled and Quakers have chosen to “lay down” their yearly meetings entirely.

Globally, Quaker opposition to LGBTIAQ+ people is more uniform and pronounced. The largest association of Quakers in the world, Friends Church Kenya, released a press statement in 2012 that stated, “God’s attitude towards the vile behaviour of homosexuality is clear…. Homosexuals are those who have deliberately deviated from what is normal sexual practices as God intended it to be.”[4] Two years later, as part of a video series published by Friends Journal, Justimore Musombi, a Quaker pastor from Kenya, talked about his experiences as a gay man and his hope for the greater acceptance of gay and lesbian people in Kenyan Quaker communities.[5] The development of the SCYM and Musombi are examples of the many conservative and evangelical Quaker voices calling for greater acceptance of LGBTIAQ+ people in the Quaker world.

Quaker views of lesbian and gay people are generally positive in liberal Quaker communities in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. In 2004, liberal Friends in the United States expressed their support of LGBTQ people in a public statement by FGC: “Our experience has been that our Gatherings and Central Committee work have been immeasurably enriched over the years by the full participation and Spirit-guided leadership of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer Friends. We will never go back to silencing those voices or suppressing those gifts.”[6] The Canadian Yearly Meeting allows monthly meetings to make their own decisions about same-sex marriages; the yearly meeting as an organization, however, stated in 2003 that it supported civil marriage for same-sex couples and the right of gay parents to raise children.[7] Quakers in the United Kingdom might rightly claim the longest continuous history of any Christian group in demonstrating a public affirmation of gay and lesbian sexuality. In 1963, a group of eleven British Friends published Towards a Quaker View of Sex. They amazed the world by proclaiming that homosexuality was entirely congruent with Christian morality.[8]

In sum, the Quaker world is incredibly diverse, and the image of the white breakfast-loving colonial grandfather does not accurately portray the majority of Quakers that exist today. That image represents neither evangelical Christ-centric African Friends or the minority of liberal Friends in the United States and the United Kingdom whose ancestors took action in support of gay and lesbian people ahead of most other religious groups. Indeed, the Quaker Oats brand has had too much influence on our perception of Quakers. The Quaker Oats company never has had a historical connection to Quakers; nor does it have a formal relationship with any Quaker group today. In 1877, Henry Seymour famously chose the name “Quaker” for his oat mill to appropriate the Quaker reputation for trustworthiness. Seymour was not part of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and his interest in Quakerism did not extend beyond admiration from a distance.[9]

This exhibit spotlights some of the key figures and significant events in the history of liberal Quaker involvement in the gay liberation movement, leading up to and immediately preceding the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Beginning in the 1940s, this exhibit shows that liberal Quaker support of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the mid-twentieth century was demonstrated through experiments in criminal justice reform, challenges to Christian moral codes, and meaningful participation in gay liberation.

Notes