Yes.

That is what I believe to the question…

Do Pro-Gay Christian Groups Really Belong At Pride?

HuffPost via Yahoo News

By: Sara Youngblood Gregory

June 7, 2023

My wife and I were wandering around the hot, packed streets of our local Pride parade in Tampa, Florida, a few weeks ago. It was your typical Pride scene: lots of queer people, couples holding hands, laughter, rainbow everything, and roads filled with corporate-sponsored booths. We turned a corner and were suddenly confronted with a near block’s worth of Christian groups. At first blush, it was hard to tell if they were anti-queer protesters or pro-LGBTQ+ do-gooders. It was the latter variety that day, but with unspoken agreement, we decided to avoid engaging with them all the same.

[…]

But my recent encounter with the Christian groups tugged at me: What did they really want from me and my community? And why did a request for a hug scandalize me far more than any leather-clad kinkster ever could?

It’s no secret that queer folks often have a fraught relationship with Christianity. Many emerge from their youth with deep religious trauma, raised to believe that anything other than cisgender heterosexuality merits eternal damnation. For some, their religious upbringing also included “conversion therapy” — the discredited practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender presentation.

Yes, that happens. Yes, parents have tried to force their child straight. Yes, parents have killed their child because they were gay. Yes, many time we do it to ourselves. Yes, many times it was done because of religious beliefs.

For Nathaniel Akers, a queer man from Canada, seeing these groups at Pride ruins the experience. His upbringing was deeply linked with evangelical Christianity. He attended Bible school as a child and worked as a missionary with plans to become a pastor, but he was eventually subjected to conversion therapy and disownment.

Yes, it can create life long trauma.

Rather than show up at Pride — and assume invitation in queer spaces, as O’Leary [a field and organizing director at the Interfaith Alliance advocacy group] put it — Faith for Pride encourages religious communities to hold their own events that welcome LGBTQ+ people, give religious sermons on queer inequality, and offer book clubs or film screenings. The emphasis is on critical thinking, where religious resources should go, how these efforts can support queer-led initiatives locally, and how these efforts can be sustained throughout the year, rather than in Pride month only, said O’Leary.

All around Connecticut you can see churches holding Pride events and it is not just one denomination and it is not just Christians, but all faiths.

Pride season is a holy time for inclusive congregations, added the reverend, who also serves as the senior pastor at Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit. He noted, “As someone who lives at the intersection of many identities — Black, gay, Christian, pastor— [and] as someone who left the Baptist church because I’m gay and not knowing that I could be gay and a Christian, let alone a minister, I needed to see affirming and welcoming congregations at Pride events.”

I have a good friend who is a pastor at a MCC church and he is also trans. Should he be band from Pride because he is a pastor? Another trans friend is an Episcopal priest, should she be band from Pride?

A committee that I am on has Rabbis, Imams, as well as members of their parishes. 

So what do you think?

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