Every two years Uniting Network Australia (UNA) hosts a national conference, commonly known as ‘Daring’.
UNA is the national network for lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and transgender people, their families, friends and supporters within the Uniting Church in Australia. The theme for this year’s event in Melbourne was ‘Daring to Reach Out – Honouring Our Diversity’.
‘Daring’ may seem like a funny name for a church conference, but it comes from a time when it was not particularly safe to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, intersex and queer – (LGBTIQ) people in the church, or society for that matter.
The first conference ‘Daring to speak – Daring to listen’ in 1994 was an important moment, a safe space created to discuss faith and sexuality, and to network and support each other in life and ministry. Since that first Daring, people connected to UNA have continued to gather every two years for much the same purpose.
This year’s conference, held from 10–13 June in Melbourne, aimed to hear from diverse voices from a range of cultural and faith backgrounds. We learned about different understandings of family and kinship. We heard the experiences of people from multicultural and cross cultural networks in understanding and connecting with people of diverse sexualities and the importance of a theology of hospitality in understanding and working through our differences.
