Rev. Debra Haffner
Debra W. Haffner is the Founding Director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing. A sexuality educator and public health professional for more than thirty years, Ms. Haffner has devoted her attention to sexuality and religion since 1996. She is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, and is the endorsed community minister at the Unitarian Church in Westport, CT. She served as the president and CEO of SIECUS, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, for 12 years.
Reverend Haffner has served as a consultant to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on the development and evaluation of their comprehensive lifespan sexuality education program and the safe congregations program, the Ford Foundation on their activities in religion and sexuality, and People for the American Way as a member of their Progressive Religious Partnership. She is a member of the speaker’s bureau of Faith in Public Life, the Centers for Disease Control’s AIDs religious advisory committee, the executive committee of the Religious Roundtable, and a theological advisor to the Search Institute. Rev. Haffner has been an adjunct professor at Meadville-Lombard Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School.
Reverend Haffner is the author of six books, as well as four manuals for congregations on sexuality issues. She has authored ten chapters in books and more than 80 articles in the professional literature.
Reverend Haffner is the co-creator of the Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, which has been endorsed by more than 2800 clergy and theologians. She led the development of theological frameworks on sexuality education, adolescent sexuality, marriage equality, sexual and gender diversity, and assisted reproductive technologies.
Ms. Haffner was a Research Fellow at the Yale Divinity School in 1996. She graduated with a Masters in Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in May 2002, was ordained in 2003, and approved for final fellowship in 2006.
She graduated from Wesleyan University in three years, holds a Masters of Public Health from the Yale School of Medicine and was a Fellow of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. In June 2000, the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health voted her the 2000 Distinguished Service Award. Her work has also been honored by such diverse organizations as the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Norwalk High School Hall of Fame. Rev. Haffner has been married for 26 years and is the mother of two children.
Last updated on Friday, May 1, 2009.
