Minute: Albany Meeting on Sexual Orientation

Albany Monthly Meeting

Dear Melanie-Claire [Mallison, clerk of Nurture Coordinating Committee] and Committee Members:

At Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business on April 9, 2006, the Friends of Albany Meeting approved sending a copy of the attached Minute to you in response to your mailing dated February 2, 2006. We found the Minutes and statements from other Meetings and especially from Junior Yearly Meeting to be interesting and inspiring and we will distribute copies and plan to have further discussion of the topic.

Sincerely, in Friendship
Anne Liske and Maggy Wiard,
Co-clerks

Called Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business
March 30, 1996

After discussion and worship-sharing, the following Minute was approved by the Meeting:

Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another, but praying for one another, and helping one another up with a tender hand. —Isaac Pennington, 1667

Acknowledging that Albany Friends Meeting has struggled for many years to find unity, we recognize that each of us brings different personal experiences to the search. We affirm the need for continued healing of those who have been hurt in the process and of the Meeting community as a whole.

We value that of God in all people. We honor each person's spiritual search. We welcome each person's search as part of the Meeting's search for divine truth.

Albany Friends Meeting, following its normal clearness processes, welcomes all persons, including gays and lesbians, as full members of the Meeting, with all the responsibilities and rights, including marriage under the care of the Meeting.

We affirm the need for continuing discernment about family and relationships.