Thursday, September 11, 2025
5 p.m. Pacific/6 p.m. Mountain/7 p.m. Central/8 p.m. Eastern
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Join Heather White and author Brian Blackmore in discussion of the newly published To Hear and to Respond: The Quakers’ Groundbreaking Push for Gay Liberation, 1946-1973 (Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences, 2025).
In this book, Blackmore tells the story of Quaker support for gay rights in the mid-20th century as demonstrated through experiments in criminal justice reform, challenges to Christian moral codes, advocacy for the decriminalization of homosexuality, and efforts to instigate attitudinal change both within and beyond the Quaker world. Quaker initiatives during this era included the first social service organization for gay people in the U.S., the first public and positive statement on homosexuality from a religious perspective, and the first public statement in support of bisexuality from a religious assembly. Contrary to the general assumption that religious groups were antagonistic toward LGBTQ persons at that time, Quakers were present at the Stonewall riots, instrumental in organizing the first pride parades in multiple major U.S. cities, and they provided training, leadership and support for a number of early gay rights organizations.
Brian T. Blackmore, Ph.D. is a community-based independent scholar who serves as the Director of Quaker Engagement at the American Friends Service Committee. Prior to stepping into this role, Brian taught about religion, gender, and sexuality in elective courses for high school students at Westtown School, a Quaker day and boarding school in southeastern Pennsylvania. His writing about the role Quakers played in the gay rights movement can be found in The Quaker World (Routledge 2023), a virtual exhibit produced by the OutHistory Project, and his first monograph, To Hear and To Respond: The Quakers’ Groundbreaking Push for Gay Liberation, 1946-1973. Brian currently serves on the board of directors for the Friends Historical Association and the Status of LGBTIQ+ Persons in the Professions Committee of the American Academy of Religion.
Heather White, Ph.D. is a specialist in American religious history with a research focus on sexuality, gender, and 20th century social movements. Heather teaches courses in gender, feminist and queer studies; queer theory and queer politics; sexuality and the history of religion; and the history and politics of religious freedom. Heather’s first book, Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2015. Heather also co-edited an anthology (with Gillian Frank and Bethany Moreton), titled Devotions and Desires: Histories of Religion and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century United States. Heather serves on the advisory board of the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network, and is a steering committee member of the Queer Studies in Religion group of the American Academy of Religion.
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Friends/Quakers