This badge was made in early 2015, at a time when the Scottish Episcopal Church was quagmired in a listening process about the issue of LGBT people in the church. It was a frustrating and painful time for the LGBT community who were already in the church, and there were many days when it felt as if the whole process would simply allow the question of equality to be kicked into the tall grass, there to be lost and forgotten.

Taken from the gospel hymn that became the anthem of the American civil rights movement for Black lives in the 1960s, many people forget that the lyrics to that anthem are not “We Shall Overcome” but “We Shall Overcome Some Day”. A small difference, but a difference that feels far more real and true when the fight seems slow and hard. It remains real and true for many people in many parts of the world today.

You can hear a short clip of Joan Baez singing “We Shall Overcome” at the 1963 March on Washington DC here:

St Mary’s Cathedral is known for its magnificent weddings — organs, choirs, gorgeous liturgy, bells, whistles, and that one time, when there was a trained owl. The first public same-sex blessing of a civil partnership was conducted in the building 2008, and when it became possible to conduct same-sex weddings in Scottish Episcopal Churches in September 2017 St Mary’s was amongst the first of the churches to do so. We are also happy to conduct marriages of opposite-sex couples in the Cathedral, and they are every bit as fabulous.

These badges are sometimes given out by the celebrant to the newly married couple after their service.

Some pictures of weddings at St Mary’s can be seen here, on the Weddings page of the website:

Getting Married at St Mary’s

This badge is another one that the Provost has worn on Pride Marches.

A few years ago, the Provost was marching with a group of Episcopalians at a Glasgow Pride event. As the march progressed, a young Australian man asked whether he could join us for a bit. He did and chatted for a while and then said, “Well I must go and find my friends. But can I ask you something first? Are you real?”

“What do you mean, am I real?”

“Well, are you a real priest?”

“Yes, I’m real”.

“Cool. But just one more question – those nuns up ahead…”

He gestured towards the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who were marching just ahead of the Episcopalians.

“…they’re not real, right?”

(More on lesbian nuns in next week’s badges)

This badge was made following the landmark decision by the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church in June 2017 to extend marriage in the church to same-sex couples. It has been worn at Pride marches throughout Scotland by Episcopalians ever since.

The words “Love Wins” were taken from the response that had been seen in the United States two years earlier when, in their own landmark decision, the US Supreme Court had voted to make same-sex marriage the law throughout the nation. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy had written, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were.”

It is so ordered.

The clenched fist on this badge was the symbol of the Gay Liberation Front.

The Gay Liberation Front was initially founded in the United States in the wake of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Its members organised the first Pride march in New York City. They demanded an end to the oppression and persecution of lesbian and gay people, and an end to police brutality against the lesbian and gay community. The leaders of the movement included members of the trans community, most notably Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Ray Rivera who co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) which was a mutual aid project between trans sex workers and queer homeless youth.

In 1970, a parallel movement of the Gay Liberation Front was founded in the UK at the London School of Economics. It spread elsewhere in the UK, and organised a series of direct-action events including disruption of Mary Whitehouse’s Festival of Light.

The organisation in the UK splintered after 1973, but many of the rights fought for and won by the LGBT community in the UK can trace their roots back to the GLF. The organisations that spun off from the GLF included the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, the Gay Times, the activist organisation Out!Rage founded by Peter Tatchell, and Gay Icebreakers, which produced a group which in turn founded “Gay’s The Word”, the first independent LGBT bookshop in the UK.

This badge is the perhaps the only badge from the St Mary’s Badge Stall to have featured in an article in the Times newspaper.

When the Scottish Episcopal Church debated opening marriage to same-sex couples in 2017, many members of the General Synod were wearing this badge during the debate. This was spotted by a reporter who based part of his report of the synod on it.

It was widely expected that the Archbishop of Canterbury would in some way condemn the decision of the Scottish General Synod when it was made. In the end, this didn’t happen though whether that was because of the reports of these badges in the national media is anyone’s guess. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury had had much to say about a similar decision in the US based Episcopal Church.

The badge is based on the 37th article of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion which are recognised by the Church of England. (Scottish Episcopal Priests do not have to affirm the Thirty Nine Articles) which states The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

Occasionally, people erroneously believe the Scottish Episcopal Church to be in some way directed by the decisions of the Church of England. The debate on marriage was just one of many ways in which this was obviously not the case.