Outward: Slate's LGBTQ podcast

If you’d like to support our podcast and show everyone how important and impactful this story is, we hope you will take a moment to vote for us for The Signal Listener’s Choice Award by going to vote.signalaward.com/publicvoting.When We All Get to Heaven tells the story of one of the first LGBTQ-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC-SF), and how it faced the personal, social, and political trials of the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of hundreds of its members. This 10-episode series uses historical tapes rescued from the church to bring listeners into the heart of a community struggling to live while struggling with faith. The first two episodes are available here at Outward on October 15. This show is produced by Eureka Street Productions. Our theme song, “When We All Get to Heaven,” was written by Eliza Hewitt and performed by MCC-SF’s congregation and choir. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eight years ago, Slate editor Bryan Lowder and writer Christina Cauterucci, with the help of producer June Thomas, kick-started a new podcast that aimed to enrich and expand the conversation around the biggest cultural and political stories affecting the LGBTQ community. Whether it was marriage equality, trans visibility, or gays buying guns, nothing was off limits. For this final episode, Bryan and Christina welcome back June to reflect on all the pride and provocation and provide one final update to the Gay Agenda. They’re also joined by a few familiar voices before sending this show upward and outward. Stay Gay! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slate and the team at Eureka Street Productions are so honored by this award and want to thank everyone who has listened to and supported the show. This series tells the story of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, one of the first gay-positive churches in America, and how its congregation faced the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of hundreds of its members.At the heart of the series is a remarkable discovery: 1,200 cassette tapes of sermons, memorials, and music recorded inside the church during the worst years of the crisis. A church member rescued them after they'd been thrown away. What you hear isn't people reconstructing the past from memory, it's the actual voices from inside the crisis, preserved on tape and brought to life across 10 episodes. It's a story about resilience, the strength of community, and finding beauty and hope even in the darkest of times—a message with powerful resonances decades later.To celebrate this award, Lynne Gerber, the host of the show, recorded a special note to listeners, and we are bringing back the trailer to introduce new listeners—who are just finding When We All Get to Heaven from the Peabody Award—to the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our friends at Selects bring you this documentary from 2010 looking at the debate among LGBTQ folks in San Francisco around the fight for gay marriage and the cost of that fight borne by other parts of the broader community. The Selects Podcast is a free, twice-monthly show that is bringing you unearthed audio works that we’ve found buried in web archives, radio streams, and early podcasts. It’s hosted by Mitra Kaboli, whose work you may have heard on Welcome to Provincetown and The Heart. In addition to the free podcast, there’s a whole collection with exclusive shows and robust show notes looking at the history of these works and how they fit into the bigger audio landscape.The Selects Podcast aims to preserve work that is being lost to digital time - these are award-winning documentaries made by some of the best in the medium, but they are getting lost in web archives and defunct podcast feeds.  Listening helps give these works a new life, something that can help make the audio industry more sustainable.Learn more about Selects at https://selects.supportingcast.fm/Beyond Gay Marriage was hosted and produced by Lisa Dettmer and co-produced bt Elena Botkin-Levy. Financial support was provided by Astraea Foundation and Making Contact at the National Radio Project. Lisa Dettmer is a radio producer with the feminist radio show "Women’s Magazine" at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California, which can be heard at kpfa.org/program/womens-magazine. Learn more about Selects at https://selects.supportingcast.fm/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As When We All Get to Heaven wraps up, Christina sits down with series host Lynne Gerber and producer Siri Colom. They discuss how the church has changed, the value of fleeting queer spaces, and what a decade or more spent working on this story has meant to—and taught—them.Get more Outward with Slate Plus! Join for weekly bonus episodes of Outward and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Outward show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/outwardplus for access wherever you listen.Produced by Palace Shaw and Merritt Jacob. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.