On this day in queerstory: faith embraces queerness

Queer history is often remembered in riots and rallies, but October 25 tells a different story — one built on community, continuity, and the steady, sacred work of preservation. From a Washington synagogue celebrating fifty years of inclusive faith to a Los Angeles lecture reframing queer life before Stonewall, this date shows how the LGBTQ+ story endures in both the spiritual and the archival.

In the heart of D.C., Bet Mishpachah, the city’s LGBTQ+-affirming Jewish congregation, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week — a milestone for both faith and queer belonging.

Founded in the mid-1970s by a handful of gay and lesbian Jews seeking a spiritual home, the synagogue began modestly — meeting in private homes and borrowed community rooms, creating a sanctuary for people who had been made to feel unwelcome in both religious and queer spaces. Over the decades, Bet Mishpachah grew into a vibrant congregation of nearly 200 members, with regular Shabbat services, lifecycle rituals, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ inclusion across faith communities.

At the anniversary gala on October 25, longtime congregant Mark Goldstein reflected on those early days: “We were told we couldn’t be both — queer and devout. But we were. We are. And this synagogue is the proof.”

Current rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin echoed that sentiment in his address. “Love is holy,” he told the crowd. “Our mission has always been to create a Judaism that reflects all of us — where authenticity and faith don’t cancel each other out, they illuminate each other.”

The celebration was more than nostalgia; it was a statement of resilience. In a time when queer people still face hostility in many religious settings, Bet Mishpachah’s survival stands as a reminder that inclusion, when rooted in faith, can outlast prejudice.

Meanwhile, across the country, the ONE Institute and Los Angeles LGBT Center hosted a packed evening with historian George Chauncey, titled “Rethinking the Closet: New York Gay Life Before Stonewall.”

The event, held at the Renberg Theatre, revisited the decades leading up to the 1969 Stonewall uprising — a period often dismissed as one of total repression. Chauncey, whose groundbreaking book Gay New York reshaped modern queer historiography, argued otherwise: “There was a rich, complex urban gay world before Stonewall — bars, drag balls, love affairs, coded friendships, and quiet defiance. Queer life existed; it just wasn’t allowed to name itself publicly.”

The lecture drew students, activists, and older community members who lived through the years Chauncey described. Many nodded as he spoke about the networks of resistance that flourished under threat of arrest and exposure — the way men and women carved out freedom in hidden corners of the city, inventing language and culture long before visibility became possible.

“History doesn’t begin with a riot,” Chauncey said. “It begins with the daily courage to exist.”

Together, the D.C. celebration and the L.A. lecture form twin strands of queer endurance: one spiritual, one historical. Both speak to the quiet power of continuity — the way communities sustain themselves not just through protest, but through persistence.

The connection isn’t coincidental. The founding of Bet Mishpachah in the 1970s was part of the same post-Stonewall momentum Chauncey’s work documents: a generation building institutions so that queer people could live openly, love openly, and remember freely.

Today, both kinds of work — the faith-based and the archival — are under renewed attention. In an era of resurging censorship, attacks on queer spaces, and the digital erasure of community records, the act of preserving one’s own history remains radical.

On October 25, as candles were lit in Washington and a slideshow of lost New York bars played in Los Angeles, a common theme ran through both events: visibility without apology.

“We’ve always been here,” said Rabbi Singer-Beilin at the close of Bet Mishpachah’s celebration. “And every time we tell our stories, every time we gather — whether in a synagogue, an archive, or a living room — we ensure we’ll still be here fifty years from now.”