Outward: Slate's LGBTQ podcast - 1: Setting The Table | When We All Get to Heaven
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1993, more than 10 years into the AIDS epidemic, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC-SF) tries to remember all they’ve lost. We think about remembering too after encountering an archive of 1,200 cassette recordings of this queer church’s services during the height of the epidemic. Whether you’re a regular church goer or would never step into one, we invite you to spend time with this LGBTQ+ San Francisco church as it struggles to reconcile sexuality and faith in the midst of an existential crisis.
For images and links about this episode visit https://www.heavenpodcast.org/episode-1.
About the montage: The worship service in this episode was on February 28, 1993. The Dyke March proclamation was written and read by Rev. Lea Brown. Rev. Karen Foster read the statement that sexual orientation does not need to be changed. Jim Mitulski recalled his hospital visit with the man who recognized him by his shape. Paul Francis told strangers at a restaurant to get ugly lovers and Eric Rofes told his mother that he was going to stay safe and keep having sex. Cleve Jones had the vision of a thousand rotting corpses, Rev. Ron Russell Coons preached that we have AIDS as a community, and Rev. Troy Perry proclaimed a revival on Eureka Street. The other people heard in the episode are either unknown or did not want to be named.
When We All Get to Heaven is produced by Eureka Street Productions. It is co-created by Lynne Gerber, Siri Colom, and Ariana Nedelman. Our story editor is Sayre Quevedo. Our sound designer is David Herman. Our managing producer is Krissy Clark. Tim Dillinger is our consulting producer and Betsy Towner Levine is our fact-checker. We had additional story editing help from Sarah Ventre, Arwen Nicks, Allison Behringer, and Krissy Clark. For a complete list of credits, please visit http://heavenpodcast.org/credits.
This project received generous support from individual donors, the Henry Luce Foundation (www.hluce.org), the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities (www.CalHum.org).
Eureka Street Productions has 501c3 status through our fiscal sponsor FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds.
The music for this episode is from the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco’s archive. It was performed by MCC-SF’s musicians and members with Bob Crocker and Jack Hoggatt-St.John as music directors. Additional music is by Tasty Morsels.
Thanks to
- Paul Katz and Henry Machen for permission to use “June in San Francisco” from their fabulous 1991 musical Dirty Dreams of a Clean Cut Kid.
- The estate of Leonard Bernstein for the use of “Somewhere” from West Side Story.
Great thanks, as always, to the members and clergy of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco who made this project possible.
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.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Christina Cauderucci, and this is Outward, Slate's show about queer life, culture, and politics. |
| 0:10.0 | We've been away for a little while, but we're back with a new series we're really excited to share with you. |
| 0:15.9 | It's called When We All Get to Heaven, a show from the creators at Eureka Street Productions, and it's unlike |
| 0:21.8 | anything we've ever done at Slate, built from an astonishing archive and 10 years in the making. |
| 0:27.5 | It weaves together more than 1,200 cassette tapes of sermons, memorials, and music from a queer |
| 0:33.2 | church in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis. |
| 0:37.0 | If things have felt overwhelming |
| 0:38.5 | lately, you're not alone, and we're really proud to share something that feels grounding, |
| 0:44.1 | generous, and full of life. These are voices of loss, of faith, of defiance, voices of people |
| 0:52.6 | who refuse to abandon their queerness or their spirituality, |
| 0:56.2 | and instead built a community that could hold both. |
| 0:59.8 | The series is deeply sound rich, and listening to it feels like stepping into the room with this community, |
| 1:06.1 | shoulder to shoulder, across time. |
| 1:08.7 | After you finish episode one, check out our conversation with the series host, Lynn Gerber, |
| 1:13.0 | about how these tapes were rescued from a trash pile and how she spent 10 years putting together |
| 1:17.8 | this beautiful work of history. |
| 1:20.3 | I hope you'll listen slowly. |
| 1:22.8 | Let it wash over you, like a religious service, a meditation, a remembering. |
| 1:29.0 | So settle in, take a breath. |
| 1:32.3 | Here's episode one of when we all get to heaven. |
| 1:38.1 | Have you had the experience of not even being able to remember the names of people who were once dear to you? |
| 1:51.0 | This week I was driving in my truck and I popped in a Madonna tape. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.