Catalogue Number
NMLH.2020.5.268
Object Name
badge
Title
universal fellowship
People
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
Description
White circular badge with a hand-drawn pink bordered triangle with three hands holding each other's wrists to form a triangle. One of the hands is cross-hatched to suggest a darker skin tone. Above and below the triangle, black text reads "universal fellowship".
The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church (UFMCC) is an international LGBTQIA-affirming Protestant Christian denomination, though has also been considered non-denominational. There are 222 member congregations in 37 countries, and the fellowship has a specific outreach to members of the LGBTQIA community and is a leader in the field of queer theology. MCC was founded in 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA by Reverend Troy Perry, an openly gay man. It grew from a few churches in the 1970s to over 200 churches today.
The pink triangle symbol was reclaimed by the gay community after originally being a symbol of persecution. The symbol originated as a pink triangle cloth patch, used to identify gay men in prisons and concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Its reclaimed use spread through the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and is now positively associated with the wider LGBTQIA community.
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