Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans (formerly known as Vieux Carre Metropolitan Community Church. Metropolitan Community Church of Greater New Orleans and Big Easy Metropolitan Community Church ) is an LGBT-affirmative church in New Orleans. It is a member of the Metropolitan Community Church denomination, and has not held a dedicated edifice for the majority of its history.
The 1998 memorial for the 1973 UpStairs Lounge arson attack and fire proved to be a turning point for the modern LGBTQ modern rights movement in New Orleans when mourners refused to avoid TV cameras and media awaiting outside the service. Instead of using the side exit and leaving through an alley the 300-strong crowd sang "United We Stand", a theme song of the gay bar, as they left the memorial service through the front doors. Previous to this the LGBTQ community was closeted and underground. The fire was called the "first gay tragedy of the modern rights movement" and "the last major national news event in the gay community to go almost completely unreported by the national media."
History
The Metropolitan Community Church has a long history in the city of New Orleans, dating back to the 1970s. A small congregation, led by Reverend William "Bill" Larson, formed in 1971 and first started holding Sunday afternoon services at St. George's Episcopal Church run by Father Bill P. Richardson, a minister who had employed gays as assistant ministers and had just recently returned from a summer Union Theological Seminary seminar entitled "Homosexuality, Women's Liberation, and Communal Living." The Gay Liberation Front had recently collapsed and Richardson was determined to assist the LGBTQ community to "accept themselves." St. George's even opened an alternative bookstore which stocked feminist and gay liberation titles. MCC New Orleans met at St. George's for the first six months of its existence. They then met at the Up Stairs Lounge before moving to Larson's apartment in 1973 until June 24, 1973, when the UpStairs Lounge arson attack took the lives of Larson and other members of the congregation. It was one of two dozen attacks on MCC churches over the years, but it was the deadliest eventually taking thirty-two lives including both the pastor and associate pastor, the casualties included one third of the local MCC chapter. The New Orleans church was one of 36 MCC's in the country, MCC was emerging and remains one of the largest membership LGBT organizations in the world. According to Out For Good authors Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, it was "the first gay tragedy of the modern gay rights movement," and possibly "the last major national news event in the gay community to go almost completely unreported by the national media." The lounge was crowded with members of the congregation and revelers celebrating the final night of their Gay pride weekend. The fire had been set on the stairs to the upstairs bar between the street door and the "solid fire door" at the second-floor entrance. The "canvas awning over the street door was untouched." From the night of the fire the New Orleans Police Department, the State Fire Marshall's Office and the Fire Prevention Bureau treated the blaze as an arson and repeatedly spoke of it in that light. The police department's chief of detectives, Major Henry Morris, said there was hints of firebombing, but no evidence to prove it. No lighter or trace of gasoline was found. It was the deadliest fire in the city for nearly two hundred years and No one was ever convicted of the crimes.