The touring Shower of Stoles exhibit will be coming to APSU on Wednesday, April 22 and will be on display in MUC room 306 from 12 to 7 p.m.

Shower of Stoles is an exhibit created in 1995 by Martha Juillerat, a former Presbyterian minister. Juillerat served in a congregation in rural Missouri. When she came out as being lesbian to her congregation, they threatened to defrock her, or strip her of her ability to serve the church. Instead she set aside her ordination and she and her partner, Tammy Lindhahl, who was also a minister, asked their LGBT friends and colleagues to send a stole that they could hang on the day Juillerat set aside her ordination.

Juillerat collected and received hundreds of stoles over the next 10 years and created a touring exhibit of the stoles of former ministers defrocked for their sexual orientation. She oversaw about 1,500 exhibits before retiring and giving the Shower of Stoles to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Institute for Welcoming Resources.

The Wesley Foundation, Tapestry and the APSU Gay Straight Alliance sponsor the event.

The statement released on the APSU Shower of Stoles Project Exhibit Facebook page reads, “People who go into ministry – rabbis, priests, preachers – feel called by God to serve God’s children. Some of those people, however, are denied the ability to serve simply because they are born LGBT. We at APSU Wesley Foundation are proud to be hosting the APSU Shower of Stoles Project Exhibit.”

For more information on the Shower of Stoles Project, visit http://www.welcomingresources.org/sosp.htm.