Posts Tagged ‘Religion and Sexuality’
Saying Yes To God’s Call This Advent Season
The season of Advent guides us on a journey from darkness to light, from recognizing our great need for God to finding God’s love born in a manger. When I read Advent hymns and carols I’m deeply struck by the groans and pains of humanity crying out for the living God. Crying out for justice,…
Read MoreI Survived Conversion Therapy, But Not Without Scars
When I was 15, my parents took me to the basement of a church in my western hometown for “therapy.” The “therapist,” Michael, was an older, pale-faced man with graying brown hair. His office was painted sky blue and decorated with white-framed pictures of his family sitting on hay bales, grinning at the camera. The…
Read MoreIreland Passes Bill To Protect LGBT Church Workers From Discrimination
Ireland’s lawmakers ended the country’s “Year of Equality” by passing a bill that will ban discrimination by religious institutions against LGBT employees. Gay Star News explained this latest development: The bill amends Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which allows schools and hospitals to ‘takes action’ to prevent employees from ‘undermining the religious ethos…
Read MoreLooking Ahead: What’s Next For Our Work
In the coming year, we expect to see more than 100 anti-LGBTQ religious refusal laws proposed across the country. These laws come in many forms, but they all have the same goal—to use religion as an excuse to discriminate against and harm others. The good news is we’re a community committed to opposing such harmful…
Read MoreThe Black Church: Bold Enough To Affirm LGBTQ People?
The recent VH1 segment, Out in Hip Hop: What Happens When Your Church Doesn’t Accept You; and the recently released BET documentary, Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church reminded me of what I hear over and over again from Black LGBTQ people who experience a loss of connection to the essential social/spiritual network…
Read MoreMy Life As A Gay Mormon
As a gay Mormon, I make my home in the borderlands. In a theology that says every man must be married to a woman in order to be with God and progress in heaven, gay Mormons are anomalies. No one quite knows what to do with us. For a while, the answer was to serve…
Read MoreWhere Would Jesus Go To The Bathroom?
Rev. Dr. Justin Tanis is an ordained Christian minister in the Metropolitan Community Church. He is also transgender, and he is the author of a book titled Transgendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith. In it Rev. Tanis writes: “We tend to create God in our own image. If we ourselves are uncomfortable with gender variation,…
Read MoreWhy I Hold My Partner’s Hand
Put simply, I love and am in love. When one’s heart is full. When one’s day is preoccupied with another. When I am in touch with the truth that I can’t live without him; and, I go through my day missing him, I can’t help but hold my partner’s hand. It is an empowering truth…
Read MoreWhy Being Bisexual Makes Me A Better Pastor
Last month, I attended the More Light Presbyterians Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a powerful experience to reconnect with LGBTQ and ally colleagues in ministry and to dream together about what the future of the church looks like beyond just queer inclusion. A particular highlight of the weekend for me was staying with a…
Read More10 Things Pope Francis Should Know About LGBTQ People
In honor of Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States, we asked our Believe Out Loud community what they want Pope Francis to know about the LGBTQ community. Check out their answers below, then help us urge Pope Francis to include LGBTQ people and families in the Catholic Church! 10. LGBTQ people are made in…
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