There Are Differences

All religions are not the same... there are affirming religions and then there are fire & brimstone religions!

Transgender priest joined dozens of Maine faith leaders to testify against anti-trans bills

The Maine Monitor

by Sean Scott

July 28, 2025

The Rev. Gwen Fry realized she was a transgender woman in 1976 as she watched the transgender tennis player Renée Richards fight to compete in the U.S. Open as a woman.

Now an Episcopal priest working in Waterville, Fry joined dozens of clergy and religious leaders from across Maine this spring to testify against a slew of bills that aimed, in part, to prevent transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.

“My church and now my state protects the trans community,” Fry said in her testimony. “I no longer live in fear to leave my house like I did in Arkansas because of the protections afforded me here in Maine. If these bills pass we will be taking giant steps backwards and my small community will experience a return to the same discrimination and oppression I fled moving to Maine.”

The news media darlings are the fire and brimstone religions, GLAAD reports,

Missing Voices: A study of religious voices in mainstream media reports about LGBT equality

A three-year study of mainstream news coverage about the intersection of religion and issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community1 showed that media outlets overwhelmingly quoted or interviewed sources from Evangelical Christian organizations to speak about LGBT lives, and the messages from those sources were significantly more negative than positive, resulting in a 'religion versus gay' framing.

Where are the pro-LGBT religious voices?

The ‘Missing Voices: A study of religious voices in mainstream media reports about LGBT equality’ study, released by GLAAD and the University of Missouri Center on Religion & the Professions,  analyzes messages presented in national news outlets by religious voices about issues affecting the LGBT community. The research, a three year study of 316 news stories about LGBT issues, using 1,387 different religious sources on national television and print news media, shows a disproportionate reliance on anti-LGBT religious voices commenting on LGBT people and issues. Three out of four religious messages came from people whose religions have formal policies opposing LGBT equality, despite the fact that acceptance of LGBT people is growing across faith traditions

The news media is largely omitting a pro-LGBT religious perspective and ignoring individuals who identify as both LGBT and religious, particularly those who identify as Christian. As a result of this framing, it is likely that media consumers have distorted views of the relationship between LGBT people and religion and follow a false 'gay vs. religion' frame.

The media often gravitates toward voices that provoke strong reactions, and that usually means highlighting conflict rather than nuance as a result it reinforces the fire & brimstone and it marginalizes the affirming voices!

Major Findings

• Media outlets persistently quoted sources from Evangelical Christian organizations to speak about LGBT issues, and the messages those sources conveyed were significantly more negative than positive.
• Individual Evangelicals are consulted at a higher rate than their presence in the population would warrant (34% of media coverage versus 26% of the U.S. population).
• Furthermore, Evangelical Christians account for almost 40% of all the negative statements about LGBT issues made by religiously identified spokespeople. Spokespeople for the Roman Catholic hierarchy account for another 12%.
• Pro-LGBT or LGBT-identified sources are predominantly presented without any religious affiliation, thus reinforcing the mainstream media framing of 'religion vs. gay'.

The article goes on to write...

 A Maine Monitor analysis found that roughly 50 clergy members, religious leaders and other representatives of faith-based groups testified individually on the anti-transgender legislation — significantly more than testified on abortion legislation this session. All but four of them opposed the bills, invoking their faith to defend the rights of transgender youth.

When we were passing the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill we had a number of religious leaders speak in favor of the bill, including a bishop.