Metropolitan Community Church: A Passion for Justice

First MCC service was held in 1968

We continue our celebration of 44 years of Metropolitan Community Churches during the month of October. Our second selection of MCC's early history...commitment to social action.

Since its very first worship service in October 1968, MCC has preached a message of Christian justice and Christian social action as core components of our faith. MCC's commitment to social action was put into action for the first time in April 1969, when Rev Perry led a group of eight MCC Los Angeles members in a peaceful demonstration in front of the Los Angeles offices of State Steamship lines, a company which had fired one of their employees for publicly declaring his homosexuality.

MCC has also embraced fasting and marches as non­violent means of achieving social justice. On June 28,1970, shortly after Los Angeles' first lesbian and gay pride parade, which Rev Perry helped organize, he sat on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue and began a public fast for meaningful dialogue about changing unjust laws that discriminated against lesbians and gay men.

Today, social justice continues to be at the heart of our faith, as exemplified by MCC's establishment of the Global Justice Institute, in partnership with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and Rev Nancy Wilson's service as a member of President Obama's White House Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.