Tag: Gay Priests

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LGBTQ Agenda

— Gay journalist selected to lead Catholic ministry

Outreach Executive Director Michael O’Loughlin, left, the Reverend James Martin, and Outreach managing editor Ryan Di Corpo were guests of President Joe Biden at a White House event for Roman Catholic leaders on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. O’Loughlin, a gay man, was selected to lead the LGBTQ Catholic ministry that was founded by Martin.

By John Ferrannini

A gay journalist is the first executive director of the relatively new LGBTQ Catholic ministry Outreach.

Michael O’Loughlin, 38, had been a national correspondent for America Media: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture, published by the Jesuit order. O’Loughlin may be familiar to Bay Area Reporter readers as the author of “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear” (2021) and host of the podcast “Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church,” which reported on events in New York City, San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro neighborhood, and elsewhere.

It was during the process of researching and writing for those reports that O’Loughlin came out of the closet publicly.

“I was so inspired by the stories of LGBT Catholics who had done this heroic HIV/AIDS ministry in the 1980s and 1990s and what it took for them during a difficult time in our history,” he told the B.A.R. “I also wanted to let listeners know that I was reliable, because I know the struggles LGBT Catholics face because I share in them.”

O’Loughlin is based in Rhode Island, while Outreach is headquartered in New York City. It is currently under the auspices of America Media, which is a nonprofit organization, as a resource for articles and information for LGBTQ Catholics, O’Loughlin stated.

The Catholic Church is the world’s largest Christian denomination, claiming 1.4 billion members worldwide. Long-standing Catholic teaching is that while homosexuality isn’t sinful per se, it is a sin to have sex with someone of the same sex.

Some countries with large Catholic populations have seen increasingly restrictive environments for LGBTQ people in recent years, such as Poland and Hungary, but the rhetoric from the Vatican has shifted during the reign of Pope Francis, who last December approved blessings of same-sex couples by priests (though some church leaders, such as San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, have told priests they can or should disregard that, as the B.A.R. reported). Francis also campaigned for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide.

Francis is less forgiving on issues of gender transition. While openly transgender Catholics can now be baptized, become godparents, and be witnesses at weddings, Francis called so-called gender ideology an “ugly ideology of our times, which cancels out the differences and makes everything the same,” according to Reuters.

Outreach came about because of a book, O’Loughlin said

“Father Jim Martin founded the organization [Outreach] a couple of years ago — it stemmed from his book ‘Building a Bridge,’ and he saw in the reaction to the book there was a need for a community where LGBT people could find support and share stories,” O’Loughlin said. “It’s been growing for the last couple years.”

Martin, an American Jesuit priest who is a consultant on the Roman Dicastery for Communication, advises the pope and often discusses LGBTQ-related topics with him.

In a February 6 news release announcing the selection of O’Loughlin, Martin stated that “with his [O’Loughlin’s] years of journalistic experience, his theological background, two books to his credit, and his deep knowledge of the LGBTQ community, I can think of absolutely no one better suited for this job.”

O’Loughlin, Martin, and Outreach’s managing editor, Ryan Di Corpo, were among President Joe Biden’s guests at a White House St. Patrick’s Day event for Catholic leaders March 17. (Biden, after John F. Kennedy, is the second Roman Catholic to serve as president.) O’Loughlin stated that he “shook Biden’s hand but there wasn’t too much of an exchange.”

The president had also invited members of the Kennedy family. One relative, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is running against Biden as an independent candidate in this year’s election. Many Kennedy family members oppose RFK Jr.’s presidential bid and support Biden. The president said during the event, “This has always been a special day for the Biden family and the Biden household. It’s not just about heritage, but it really is about faith. So much of it being Irish means to be connected to the Catholic teachings I grew up with.”

Marianne Duddy-Burke, a cisgender married lesbian Catholic mom who is executive director of DignityUSA — an LGBTQ Catholic group barred from meeting on church property in some dioceses, such as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco — agreed with Martin.

“I certainly have known Michael’s work as a journalist for quite a long time,” Duddy-Burke said. “He has written about DignityUSA on numerous occasions and I feel like he has a very good understanding of the Catholic LGBTQ world and the major issues. I think his having covered that beat for a while gives him a breadth of understanding of what’s going on.

“I think it’s really interesting to see Outreach expanding at this point where there is so much focus on queer issues within Catholicism both sexual orientation and gender identity issues … and lots of questions about the church’s future,” she added. “I welcome a new teammate in this work.”

So too does Stan JR Zerkowski, a gay man who is the executive director of the LGBTQ Catholic-affinity group Fortunate Families and director of Catholic LGBT ministry for the Diocese of Lexington.

“Michael is a person with incredible credentials, and pastoral sensitivity is second to none,” Zerkowski stated. “He is well respected, and, without a doubt, will lead Outreach with distinction. I look forward to working with Michael and I look forward to collaborating with him and seeking his counsel, too, as together all of us who minister with and among the LGBTQ community move forward with more grace because Michael is now aboard.”

Paul Riofski, a gay man who has been a member of Dignity/San Francisco since 1978 and who has held leadership roles there, said, “I think it’s a positive thing overall. The group was started by James Martin, the Jesuit, who has done a lot of work in the last couple of years. … Obviously they may have some limitations compared with what we can do as Dignity, but it’s a positive thing to have a group in favor of greater outreach to LGBTQ Catholics in the church.

“Particularly when you are dealing with people in our community who have family members who don’t know how to approach the topic, it’s a positive thing to have a group promoting accepting LGBTQ people in the church rather than a negative thing,” Riofski added.

Upcoming conference

O’Loughlin said that right now one main task is preparing for the 2024 Outreach LGBTQ Catholic ministry conference that will take place August 2-4 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

“For the upcoming conference, we’re focused on building community — there’s a sense of people gathering together at a conference once a year, then scattering, then coming back next year,” he said. “We want a chance for people to connect with other LGBT people across the country, share ideas about LGBT ministry and celebrate a community that doesn’t always have that space in the Catholic Church and think about ways we could sustain that community feeling throughout the year.”

One of the planned speakers at the conference is the Reverend William Hart McNichols, a gay Catholic priest and icon painter.

“This opportunity to hear and ponder the wisdom of all these people has been a great grace for those of us in the LGBTQ community and for others who are still struggling to understand us,” McNichols stated. “Now Michael O’Loughlin has been appointed executive director and he comes with lived experience and as an acclaimed author. He is knowledgeable and yet humble enough to learn from others; like Pope Francis, a great leader who also listens. I have tremendous respect for Michael and am honored to be asked to give a PowerPoint presentation of my art for this year’s Outreach conference in August.”

Outreach’s budget information was not immediately available. O’Loughlin declined to answer a question about his salary.

When asked his goal for his tenure with Outreach, O’Loughlin said he hopes the resource can highlight LGBTQ Catholic experiences so people don’t feel so isolated.

“Growing up, it was very isolating,” he said. “You had to choose to be gay or to be Catholic. I would have benefited from hearing some of these stories.”

He hopes Outreach “empowers them [LGBTQ Catholics] to live their life more holistically.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The End of Church Militant

By Hank Kennedy

We fighters for LGBTQ rights have to take our victories where we can get them. As state governments continue to try to take our rights away, as right-wing bigots fulminate about eliminating us from public life, as we reel in horror from the death of Nex Benedict, it’s nice to get some good news. What kind of good news? How about an anti-LGBT hate group shutting down?

In April, the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBT hate group Church Militant is closing its doors and shutting down its website. The group had its headquarters on Hilton Street, incongruously in Detroit’s premiere Gayborhood of Ferndale. The brainchild behind Church Militant was former broadcaster Michael Voris. Voris was incensed by what he viewed as inaccuracies about Catholicism presented in the book and film the DaVinci Code. He sought to clear up misconceptions about Catholicism through the website RealCatholictv.com, later renamed Church Militant.

It appears that clearing up misconceptions about Catholicism was really a front for Voris’s true goal, spreading hatred and intolerance. Church Militant insinuated that more liberal Catholics were gay in an attempt to force them out of the church. They called composer of Catholic hymns Dan Schuette an “active homosexual,” and garnered even more publicity by calling the Archbishop of Washington D.C, a Black man, a “Marxist” and an “African Queen.” These racist and homophobic slurs were too much for the Detroit Catholic archdiocese, who wrote an official rebuke of the organization.

This rebuke did not lead to a moderation of Church Militant’s message. They promoted Holocaust denier and Trump-dinner guest Nicholas Fuentes and hosted a fawning interview with conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Within Ferndale, they attempted to get their neighbors on city council to fly their flag but wisely, the city decided against flying the flag of a hate group. In an episode that showed the group’s influence, Donald Trump’s head of the Federal Elections Commission, James E. Trainor, gave an interview to Church Militant. In his interview, Trainor called the separation of church and state “a fallacy” and declared that the 2020 presidential election was “a spiritual war.”

As to what else Church Militant did to earn their hate group designation, for one they endorsed the discredited and harmful practice of conversion therapy. They ran homophobic headlines like “Episcopal Sodomy: Exposing the Enablers” and “The Gay Rainbow is the Mark of the Beast.” They targeted a LGBTQ owned bakery by asking them to bake a cake with a homophobic message.

I only encountered Church Militant once, during a counter-protest in Royal Oak. They were there, along with the 11th District Republican Committee led by fellow bigot Shane Trejo, to protest a Drag Queen Story Time event at Sidetrack Books. Happily they were vastly outnumbered. An estimated two dozen protested the event but there were 1,000 joyful counter protesters. Church Militant and friends could not halt the event and had to slink away in defeat. No children were harmed by the storytime or by any bigots.

An obvious influence on the group was notorious historical resident of Metro Detroit: The Anti-Semitic “Radio Priest” Father Charles Coughlin, who broadcast in Royal Oak. Like Church Militant, Coughlin spewed hate against minority groups and theorized that foreigners and Communists were secretly controlling the United States. Coughlin’s hated minority was Jews, for Church Militant it was LGBTQ people. Also like Church Militant, Coughlin used modern media to spread his message. In the 1930s that was radio; today it is the internet. Church Militant seemed aware of the connection given that they posted an article to their website recommending Coughlin to members as a fighter against Communism and the welfare state. For obvious reasons, they avoided the swastika-covered elephant in the room of Coughlin’s Nazi sympathies.

A few months ago, Vorhis stepped down. He had admitted in a 2017 Atlantic documentary that he had “live-in relationships with homosexual men”, but that he was now no longer gay. Apparently that change did not take since he had been sending out shirtless selfies to male staffers at Church Militant, surely embarrassing behavior for such a virulently anti-LGBTQ organization. After that misfortune, the group was sued for defamation by Reverend Georges de Laire due to Church Militant publishing an article calling him unstable and vindictive. The costs of the lawsuit settlement are so great that Church Militant will have to shut down in April. When I mentioned at a vigil for Nex Benedict in Ferndale that Church Militant would no longer be in operation, there were cheers and applause.

While I may fantasize that Church Militant were driven out a pitchfork and torch-wielding mob out of a Gothic horror story, I’m glad to see them gone, regardless of what eventually shut them down. They are down for the count, regardless of who delivered the knockout blow. But, we must be ever vigilant and ready to mobilize against any groups that may try to take the place of that dark satanic mill of propaganda.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Jesuits in US Bolster Outreach Initiative Aimed at Encouraging LGBTQ+ Catholics

— Catholic dogma continues to repudiate same-sex marriage and gender transition

In this photo provided by America Media, from left, the Rev. James Martin, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., and Rev. Eric Andrews attend the closing Mass for the Outreach conference at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, in New York, June 18, 2023. Martin is the founder of Outreach, a unique Jesuit-run program of outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics.

By Associated Press

Even as Catholic dogma continues to repudiate same-sex marriage and gender transition, one of the most prominent religious orders in the United States — the Jesuits — is strengthening a unique outreach program for LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The initiative — fittingly called Outreach — was founded two years ago by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who is one of the country’s most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church.

Outreach, a ministry of the Jesuit magazine America, sponsored conferences in New York City in 2022 and 2023, and last year launched a multifaceted website with news, essays and information about Catholic LGBTQ+ resources and events.

On Tuesday, there was another milestone for Outreach — the appointment of journalist and author Michael O’Loughlin as its first executive director.

O’Loughlin, a former staff writer at online newspaper Crux, has been the national correspondent at America. He is the author of a book recounting the varied ways that Catholics in the U.S. responded to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s — “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.”

O’Loughlin told The Associated Press he’s excited by his new job, viewing it as a chance to expand the range of Outreach’s programs and the national scope of its community.

“It’s an opportunity to highlight the ways LGBT people can be Catholic and active in parishes, ministries and charities,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear about to being too public about it. … I want them to realize they’re not alone.”

O’Loughlin says his current outlook evolved as he traveled to scores of places around the U.S. to promote his book, talking to groups of LGBTQ+ Catholics, and their families and friends, about how to make the church more welcoming to them.

Those conversations made O’Loughlin increasingly comfortable publicly identifying as a gay Catholic after years of wondering whether he should remain in the church. Its doctrine still condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.”

The latest expansion of Outreach occurs amid a time of division within the global Catholic Church as it grapples with LGBTQ+ issues.

Pope Francis, a Jesuit who has met with Martin and sent letters of support to Outreach, has made clear he favors a more welcoming approach to LGBTQ+ people. At his direction, the Vatican recently gave priests greater leeway to bless same-sex couples and asserted that transgender people, in some circumstances, can be baptized.

However, there has been some resistance to the pope’s approach. Many conservative bishops in Africa, Europe and elsewhere said they would not implement the new policy regarding blessings. In the U.S., some bishops have issued directives effectively ordering diocesan personnel not to recognize transgender people’s gender identity.

Amid those conflicting developments, Martin and other Jesuit leaders are proud of Outreach’s accomplishments and optimistic about its future.

“There seems to be deep hunger for the kind of ministry that we’re doing, not only among LGBTQ Catholics, but also their families and friends,” Martin said by email from Ireland, where he was meeting last week with the the country’s Catholic bishops.

“Pope Francis has been very encouraging, allowing himself to be interviewed by Outreach and sending personal greetings to our conference last year,” Martin added. “Perhaps the most surprising support has been from several bishops who have written for our website, as well as some top-notch Catholic theologians who see the need for serious theological reflection on LGBTQ topics.”

Martin will remain engaged in Outreach’s oversight, holding the title of founder.

The Rev. Brian Paulson, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, evoked both Jesus and the pope when asked why his order had embraced the mission of Outreach.

“Pope Francis has repeatedly called leaders in the Catholic church to emulate the way Jesus spent his ministry on the peripheries, accompanying those who had experienced exclusion,” Paulson said email. “I think the work of Outreach is a response to this invitation.”

Paulson also said he was impressed by Martin’s “grace and patience” in responding to the often harsh criticism directed at him by some conservative Catholics.

There was ample evidence of Outreach’s stature at its conference last June at a branch of Fordham University in New York City. The event was preceded by a handwritten letter of support sent to Martin by Pope Francis, extending “prayers and good wishes” to the participants.

“It’s a special grace for LGBTQ Catholics to know that the pope is praying for them,” Martin said.

Another welcoming letter came from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

“It is the sacred duty of the Church and Her ministers to reach out to those on the periphery,” he wrote to the conference attendees.

The keynote speakers included Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow, and the closing Mass was celebrated by Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Priest who ‘organised gay orgy’ faces eight years in jail as cops charge him over party that saw man overdose on erectile dysfunction pills

— Police and paramedics were refused entry to the premises upon their arrival

Father Tomasz Zmarz¿y from the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in Poland was charged with sex and drug crimes

By Ed Wight

A priest who is alleged to have organised a gay orgy in which a man was hospitalised after overdosing on erectile dysfunction pills has been arrested and could face up to eight years in jail.

Father Tomasz Zmarzły from the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in Poland was charged with sex and drug crimes as well as failure to help someone at medical risk following a police investigation into the incident.

The disgraced clergyman had allegedly thrown a small party with a male prostitute and his friend at his apartment in the city of Dąbrowa Górnicza in September last year.

But when police and paramedics were refused entry after being called when one of the men collapsed, prosecutors launched an investigation into the priest for failing to help the unconscious man.

Leaked telephone recordings suggested that the victim may have been plied with the date rape drug known as GHB.

According to Fakt newspaper which received the recording, a man believed to be the male prostitute is heard talking frantically to the emergency services.

In the call, the paper said he is heard sobbing: ‘He was so high… And they told me that he shouldn’t be touched! I tell them, check, I lifted his head and he was foaming at the mouth…’

He is then allegedly heard saying: ‘There are bars on the doors, I don’t know why… they kicked me out, hurry up!

‘Yeah, they were taking some DHB or something. I don’t know. Some GHB and drops or something… I don’t know, send an ambulance here. And the police.’

When police and paramedics were finally allowed into the apartment, they found a naked man lying unconscious on the floor.

He was taken to hospital where he later recovered and discharged himself.

It later emerged that Father Zmarzły who was suspended following the incident had also been looking for hookups on the gay dating app Grindr.

According to his former partner who contacted local newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Zmarzły turned to the dating app after being unsure about becoming a priest.

The former partner said: ‘At the end of his studies at the seminary, Tomek, aware of his homosexuality, hesitated about whether to accept priestly ordination at all.

‘He [went on] Grindr but he finally decided to become a priest.’

Local outrage in the strongly Catholic town saw one man attempting to burn down the church and ‘the faithful’ stopped their children attending service.

The local mayor also cut off ties with the church which is overseen by the diocese of Sosnowiec.

The disgraced clergyman had allegedly thrown a party with a male prostitute and his friend at his apartment, but police and paramedics were refused entry after being called when one of the men collapsed
The disgraced clergyman had allegedly thrown a party with a male prostitute and his friend at his apartment, but police and paramedics were refused entry after being called when one of the men collapsed
Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels
Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels

Posting on social media at the time, mayor Arkadiusz Chęciński said: ‘As a city, we are famous for tolerance and respect for all faiths and views.

‘However, due to recent reports from the diocese negatively influencing opinions about the city, the outrage of the inhabitants and the lack of a clear dissociation from these matters forces me to make the unpleasant decision to suspend the city’s cooperation with the Diocese of Sosnowiec until real corrective actions are taken.’

The disgraced priest also faced a backlash from his colleagues.

A fellow member of the clergy said: ‘It’s time to stop pretending. Everyone in our community knew that he had a huge problem with sexuality.

‘However, nothing was done to help him solve the problem.’

Following his arrest this week, prosecutor spokesman Waldemar Łubniewski told the Polish Press Agency: ‘Three of the charges are drug-related offences, one of which is for giving another person an illegal substance.

‘Another charge is related to violating another person’s sexual freedom.

‘The fourth charge concerns causing serious bodily injury and failing to provide assistance to a person whose health and life was in danger.’

The spokesman did not give specifics of the sexual charge, but it is known to carry a maximum penalty of up to eight years in prison.

Zmarzły is yet to comment following his arrest on Monday, but when the scandal was first reported, he sent a statement to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper denying all the allegations.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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LGBTQ+ church leaders share reflections on service

LEAD WITH LOVE: The Rev. Sarah Hulbert, dean at The Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village, says those who aren’t welcoming LGBTQ+ parishoners with open arms are missing God’s greatest commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.

by Greg Parlier

The Rev. Sarah Hurlbert says she can understand why some fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community never want to step foot in a church.

“Why would you want to be a part of a religious group that has oppressed folks?” she concedes.

But Hurlbert, who identifies as bisexual, says the same God that made her who she is also called her to the priesthood. She is disappointed in those who use the Bible to discriminate against minority communities because of what she says is an improper conflation of politics and Christian teachings.

“The more you study, the more you realize a lot of what’s being preached out there as the Gospel is not true,” she asserts. “And a lot of it is this cultural conservatism, and they’ve gotten the Bible and the flag and the Constitution all mixed up. And so it’s important for us to be in the public square, not proclaiming a political party.”

For Hurlbert, there are two primary commandments given by God to guide human life.

“Love God above everything else; love your neighbor as yourself. Outside of that, we have created all these things, all these hoops that people have to jump through, none of it’s Gospel. So what Jesus came to say was a pretty simple message that we’ve managed to really, really make hard.”

Hurlbert joined The Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village as dean in 2022. It is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina, which, she says, has been on the forefront of expanding acceptance in the Episcopal church, one of the first Christian denominations to officially allow openly LGBTQ+ ministers in its leadership.

While the national Episcopal leaders voted to make the church “fully inclusive” in 1976, it was 2009 before they passed a resolution officially allowing the ordination of LGBTQ+ bishops, and there wasn’t full support for same-sex marriage until 2015, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

At All Souls in the 1980s, the Rev. Neil Zabriskie was on the leading edge, challenging the WNC diocese to “begin facilitating conversations around human sexuality as well as becoming a welcoming and safe church for gay and lesbian persons,” according to All Souls’ website.

That conversation continued into the next decade, and today, the Rev. José A. McLoughlin, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina, says it’s his goal to welcome and earnestly include everyone, regardless of background.

“In a world where division persists, we hope that our commitment to being open and affirming is an example of the transformative power of love,” he says. “We hope also to be a living example of a church where everyone is not only accepted but fully embraced for who they are and that each person can find belonging that leads to full flourishing in the divine light of love.”

Coming out in the church

The Rev. David Eck, who is gay, did not hide who he was from his congregation when he became pastor of Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Fairview in 1993. That was a risky move at the time.

“I think early on a lot of us sort of flew under the radar,” he says. “In my denomination, I would have been fired had the bishop known.”

OPEN BOOK: The Rev. David Eck has been leading Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Fairview for about 30 years and was always open with his congregation about his sexual orientation.

It wasn’t until 2009 that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which Abiding Savior is a member, voted to allow gay and lesbian clergy to serve openly, he says.

“I would perform all the unions for couples before it was legal to actually marry folks,” Eck says. “And my congregation was supportive of that. And so, you know, we’ve just been sort of quietly affirming a wide diversity of people.”

When Eck did come out to the bishop and his colleagues from other churches, he was the only openly gay Lutheran pastor in the state, but that was less important to him than worship and community outreach.

“Those who know me well weren’t surprised,” he recalls. “Some folks, you know, just can’t seem to get beyond that prejudice. I had to part ways with some people, and there are pastors in the community that won’t work with me. It just is what it is.”

Hurlbert’s journey to the church and self-acceptance went through Broadway. After being raised in the Episcopal church in Central Florida, she moved to New York City, where she worked backstage in Broadway theaters and attended an Episcopal church she liked. But something was unsettled. She met a few women who were ordained in the church and eventually started to realize what she needed to do.

“Something was being stirred up,” she says of her decision to go to seminary. “I took my time and told God a lot of times that God was wrong. And then I did some real conversation in spiritual direction with clergy, and I finally came to realize, yep, this is what’s happening.”

It wasn’t until she was out of seminary and in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, where there were lots of other LGBTQ+ clergy, that she came out. By that time, in 2014, the church was much more accepting, making her transition to being open much easier than if she had come out during seminary.

Part of her delay to accept her own sexuality had to do with cultural norms around female relationships, Hurlbert says. There is a cultural acceptance that female relationships take many forms, so early on she was led to believe that certain feelings she was having were just a type of platonic female friendship. Later, when she entered the church, she fought the urge to get swallowed up by her ministry, not allowing herself to be loved by someone because she was so consumed by her duties caring for her congregation.

Eventually, she fell in love with her now-wife, Dee Hurlbert.

LGBTQ+ leadership

For Jesse Nelson, who is gay, the presence of LGBTQ+ leaders in the church is important to fostering a welcoming environment, especially with so much divisive rhetoric coming from segments of the Christian community.

“At the end of the day, you can’t be accepting of LGBTQ+ folks as a church and not accept them into leadership,” he argues. “To me, that’s just not possible. If you’re doing that, you’re playing a game that’s causing confusion.”

Nelson grew up in an evangelical Baptist church in Cashiers but began participating in a local Catholic church because it was a little more socially progressive, he says.

He moved to the Waynesville area about four years ago to help take care of his ailing grandfather and wound up joining Grace Church in the Mountains, an Episcopal church in town, because he liked the way the congregation preached “radical love.”

“They take ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbor’ very seriously. I think that, for me, that’s pretty important to spiritual life,” he says.

Now, Nelson hosts “joyful fellowship events” for members of the church to share in their experiences as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Hurlbert says it’s vital for church leaders to actively show the wider community love and acceptance, through word and action, especially in the face of hateful rhetoric that is also being attributed to the Bible.

“I preach to our folks that we’ve got to be out there because there are young people growing up in this far-right Christian nationalism that know in their heart that something’s wrong, but they have nothing that they can go to,” she says. “They don’t even know that there’s a place where you can go and be gay and Christian. For a lot of people, it’s a matter of life and death for us to just be out there and be who we are.”

For Nelson, integrating LGBTQ+ people into the church is the only way to build a community that resembles the one taught by Scripture.

“The point of Christianity to me is to grow in love and understanding, and to build peaceful, loving communities,” he says. “And to do that, I think you have to be accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. Not just tolerate it, but you know, integrate it into spiritual life. Because yeah, it is part of our life experience. So it is sacred.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!