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Not having grown up in church culture, my family was very accepting of my sister when she came out–all except for me. I was too young at the time to understand it, and didn’t know who to ask because my family wasn’t particularly good at discussing what anything related to sexuality meant. By the time I understood, I was involved in an evangelical Presbyterian youth group (yes, I know Presbyterians are considered mainline; trust me, this one was evangelical). I heard over and over from the pastor that it was wrong, it was sin just to BE gay, let alone “act” gay (meaning have relationships–not even necessarily sex). That church even had an “ex-gay” ministry. For years I believed they were right. But over time, I learned that several of my Christian college classmates had come out. My sister entered a long-term relationship. I worked for a college and my employers were a gay man and a bisexual woman. My own views were slowly but surely changing. It’s one of the reasons why we left the church we were attending. The pastor not only believed that it was sin, he had a whole host of false ideas about gay people. I was reprimanded by one of the church staff members for being an ally and was told it was one of the most important issues of our time. Not, say, starving children or violence against women or racism; oh, no. We should be working on making those gay people see the light! It made me furious and I was determined not to stop writing about the change we need to see in the church.
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