I confess, I cringe a bit at the identification of being “bisexual,” not because it is incorrect. It is very true that I have the capacity to be attracted to both women and men.

The problem is how limiting “bisexual” is as a description of who I am as a “bi” person. For me, it is more complex than the word suggests.

The week of the Supreme Court hearings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), I had the opportunity to engage with people from across the country—many who supported marriage equality for committed same-sex couples, and many who did not.

My daughter Kyndra Danyelle Frazier revealed to me that she was lesbian about 8 years ago. On that day, I was hurt but deep down in my soul I always knew that she was struggling with her sexuality; I always ignored it, simply too afraid to face the truth.

What a groundswell! Twelve states, our nation's capital and several Native American tribes in the United States now have marriage equality. Minnesota was the most recent. Illinois, Nevada and New Mexico are taking steps to join the ranks.

You sit straight up in your pew, white shirt pressed, artificially hiding all of your stains, amen'ing each time the pastor condemns me: "Homosexuals, unnatural, abomination."

You nod your head after each sentence, blindly stamping me a first class ticket into exile: "It's a choice, you have to be celibate, I don't agree with your lifestyle."

As the old term says so aptly, "Silence=Death." As a preacher and a pastor, I know this to be true. As a religious person, I know personally the silence that is incubated by religious communities and the destruction that it creates. I, for one, want to break that silence.

Each Sunday, clad in a bright red robe, I step into the pulpit. Before I even utter a word, my body preaches on my behalf. My gendered, queer, dancing, disordered body proclaims the Word before I ever open my mouth.

There are Sundays when a congregant might ask me, “Why do you always talk about gay stuff in worship?”

"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"(Luke 24:32)

Shanelle is currently working with the Unitatarian Universalist Association on the upcoming Mama’s Day celebrations.