In Full Communion

Anglicans and Lutherans working together in Canada

Churches mark International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, May 17

May 13, 2025

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) and The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) join with people and communities around the world in observing the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) on May 17, 2025.

Raising awareness of the violence and discrimination experienced by members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is an important step in creating safe, healthy communities for all people. An ongoing concern is that deliberate disinformation takes aim at care and safer spaces for transgender and gender non-conforming youth; hateful rhetoric, discriminatory legislation, and restrictions directly place their health, safety, and well-being at risk.

The 2025 theme for IDAHOBIT is The power of communities, reflecting the diversity and richness within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, from the grass roots to the global, and celebrating our varied and intersecting backgrounds, identities, and experiences. The theme for 2025 highlights the strength and resilience that emerges from our collective solidarity, recognising the contributions of human rights defenders, 2SLGBTQIA+ civil society groups, allies, and millions of people in our communities who support human rights and collective liberation.

Please join us in:

praying for the dignity and acceptance for all people, for the safety of those made more vulnerable by recent government actions, for a world where everyone finds loving community, and for God’s guidance in our thoughts, words, and deeds;
providing spaces and opportunities for safe, respectful conversations, where people feel support and love, and experience ongoing affirmation and transformation;
celebrating the gifts for witness, service, spiritual care and leadership that 2SLGBTQIA+ people offer to faith communities;
learning more about human rights, terminology, and pathways to liberation for 2SLGBTQIA+ people;
speaking out against rhetoric that dehumanizes and demonizes anyone made in the image of God, and promoting accurate information about our neighbours and issues of public concern;
advocating for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights at the local, provincial, and federal level; and
preparing for the possibility of providing welcome to those fleeing persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

May the God of love and liberation hear our lament. May each of us be bold in our witness. May we all work to bring an end to attacks against people God has named beloved. May the power of communities enrich the life and work of the church.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
Psalm 139:13-14

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Susan Johnson
National Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

The Most Rev. Anne Germond
Acting Primate
Anglican Church of Canada

Related resources:

Pastoral Liturgies for Gender Transition and Affirmation (Rites and Prayers Supplemental to the Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada)

Matthew 10:40-42

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Rewards

40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

John 15:12-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John 21:15-19

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus and Peter

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Luke 11:33-36

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Light of the Body

33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket; rather, one puts it on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. ³⁴Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if it is unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. ³⁵Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. ³⁶But if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”

Matthew 8:1-4

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus Cleanses a Man

8 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, ²and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” ³He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”