I am often questioned by gay and lesbian people about why I have remained in the church when the institution, historically, has preached against homosexuality. Many in the LGBT community have abandoned the church, reasoning that if God doesn’t like them, then the least they can do is return the favor and stop going by his house once a week.
My reply to them has always been this: you can only make change from within an institution. We have seen this played out over the years within many denominations that were once not welcoming to LGBT people in both the pews or the pulpit. The Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, and to some extent the American Baptists, accept LGBT people in leadership and lay roles. There are even rumblings in the United Methodist Church of pending change in their policies that declare homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching,” while, according to Joanna Brooks: “an openly gay Mormon man named Mitch Mayne ha[s] been asked (or “called,” in Mormon parlance) to serve as a leader in an LDS congregation in San Francisco.”
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