Needham Rallies, Marches, Parties for Pride

June 15, 2026
• Continuing a recent tradition between two local religious institutions, the Needham community gathered to celebrate Pride Month on Saturday afternoon.

On the lawn outside First Parish Church, community members found connection, comfort and much-needed shade beneath a huge rainbow parachute. Elected officials, religious leaders, LGBTQ people and families and neighbors formed a circle around the tarp, tossing it in the air and scurrying underneath.

The activity served as a symbol of their celebration of queer joy and inclusivity for Pride Month.

“It’s all of us working together that creates a more welcoming and safer town,” said Rev. Catie Scudera, lead minister of First Parish Unitarian Universalist.

Needham Has Pride, now in its fifth year, is a collaborative effort between First Parish and the Congregational Church of Needham, United Church of Christ. The event begins as a rally before attendees march down Great Plain Avenue to the Congregational Church for a party, with craft tables, bubbles and a drag queen storytime.

Both denominations embrace LGBTQ people through adopted covenants. For First Parish, that takes the form of its Welcoming Congregation, and Needham’s Congregational Church is designated as an Open and Affirming Ministry. The churches each received those distinctions more than 25 years ago.

The faith organizations “have been really at the forefront” of faith-based equality for LGBTQ people, Scudera said. They became one of the first denominations to ordain women and later gay men and LGBTQ people.

Rev. John Gage of the Congregational Church wore rainbow overalls Saturday as he offered glitter blessings alongside other clergy members. Like ashes on Ash Wednesday, they marked people’s faces with colorful glitter.

Gage, who is gay, acknowledged that some people couldn’t join the celebration Saturday because it’s not always safe for them to live authentically.

“Coming out is always a personal choice,” he said. “You always have to privilege your own sense of safety and support, and so we are here not just for ourselves… but we are here holding hands on either side of us with people who are not here yet today because they can’t, or because they couldn’t because of scheduling, or because of lots of things that can happen on a sunny summer afternoon, but we’re here also with all the people who came before us.”

The Needham Diversity Initiative supplied Pride lawn signs, and the co-hosts solicited donations for OUT MetroWest, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ youth.

Scudera signaled support for several bills passing through the State House, which would support gender-affirming care and transgender people.

While the federal administration disseminates “homophobia, anti-trans and anti-queer hate and disinformation,” State Sen. Becca Rausch said Massachusetts continues to fight for equal rights. She referenced updates to the Shield Law, which protects those seeking and providing gender-affirming care and reproductive care.

Supporting LGBTQ+ people is simple, Rausch said: “Treat everyone with love and respect.”

“Pride is a time for celebration and reflection. For our queer and trans community members and allies alike, this month is about saying yes to including and supporting one another, saying yes to embracing authenticity, and this month is about joy.”

Needham resident Sherri, who declined to give a last name, reflected on the significance of a community celebration, particularly in what Sherri described as a difficult political time for LGBTQ people.

“We’re also a queer family in Needham, so it’s really nice to feel a space that feels welcoming to us, and it’s nice to see neighbors at an event celebrating something that is important,” Sherri said. “I think it’s important for neighbors to come together to not only support each other but also just recognize all the different types of families who live here, and so it’s nice to be able to have a space to do that in town, where people live.”

When Select Board Chair Heidi Frail explained her “unusual household” growing up, she compared it to the ’80s show “Kate & Allie,” about two divorced moms who raised their children under the same roof. That was “before gay marriage was legal and way before being out in the ‘burbs was even close to cool,” she said.

Her moms’ example instilled important values, Frail said.

“They blazed a trail for me to follow my heart, to judge myself by my own values, to do what I thought was right, no matter how others might feel about it — something I use pretty much every day these days,” Frail said. “And I think that we should all be so lucky to have these choices, the choices and the confidence and the bravery, to some, that it sometimes takes to make those choices. And those choices and that bravery and that confidence are what I wish for this Needham community.”

After the rally, about three dozen people walked across town, some wearing Pride flags as capes, their shirts adorned with face paint, stickers and buttons, others waving small flags as they walked. Children, teenagers, parents and older adults traveled together to the party, where an inflatable unicorn, bubbles and crafts awaited them.

Participants made bracelets, collected pins and wrote words of pride on a poster board: “Be you, whatever that means.” “Pride is the opposite of shame.” “You were made in the image of God.”

Scudera called for courage, open minds and a commitment to helping each other find joy. Gage, in the wake of harmful legislation and hate, reaffirmed LGBTQ people’s place in the world.

“We will not be erased. We will be here on behalf of ourselves, on behalf of others who cannot be here,” Gage said. “We come carrying the legacy of folks who went before, and we come clearing the way and opening the door for others who will come after, because we are here, we are queer in all the ways that we are queer, and we are not going anywhere.”