Two Amazing Stories This Sunday: Part 2

We are constantly hearing how we are damn and going to hell but not every religious thinks that way and some of them that don’t may surprise you,

'As a Christian, I am Sorry:' Evangelical Pastor's Reflections on Attending First Pride Parade
Sojourners
By Adam Phillips
June 17, 2015

This year I was invited to attend my first ever Pride Parade. Our friend Robin invited us to join her church on their “float” and march the hour-long parade route together. Robin’s church has been nothing but inclusive of us these past four months. You see, our one-year old new church plant was kicked out of our parent denomination because of our convictions on including the LGBTQ community.
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What I did not realize, however, was the overwhelming sense of inclusion I would experience, along Portland’s downtown streets and waterfront.
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You see: for the longest time I would not be allowed to communicate such sentiment, for fear of the picture being posted on social media. That’s how intense the fear was for me in my former denomination and so many of my friends and colleagues who remain. Better to let these things lie unsaid, church leaders would tell us. We were not allowed to preside over same-sex weddings, for one, even though many of us either affirmed or secretly presided over them for years. You wouldn’t want a photo of you attending such a gay-affirming event to pop up on Facebook for fear of losing your job. Marching around with an apology on my chest at the Pride Parade? Well, that was the most unfathomable thing of all.

But those fears were meaningless to me now. We had already lost everything: two years of funding, friends, our faith family support system. Best to move forward, step by step, and see what this brave new world had to offer.

There are people of faith who support LGBT people so don’t paint all religions with a board brush, you might be painting an ally.

This Friday at 5:00 PM there will be a Pride Rally at the Old State House in Hartford, come and join us.