I have always been Christian and religious. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. I grew up in a conservative Presbyterian church that had a “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude toward homosexuality, so when I came out to myself as queer at 16, I was devastated. At first, I considered celibacy, which was my church’s only answer to homosexuality. I would have done it if I had been sure it was what God wanted, but something nagged at my brain. How could it be a sin? Who was I hurting? Why would God have made me queer if I was supposed to spend my whole life fighting it? I considered fighting it for a while and then started looking for other options.

I found out that a lot of denominations, my own included, have groups of churches that accept lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people without asking us to change. I visited all different kinds of churches: Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ and Presbyterian. I began to believe that homosexuality was not a sin — that God loves and accepts people regardless of their sexuality. Jesus, after all, said nothing about homosexuality and spent his time with all sorts of people on the fringes of society.

Still, I had considered getting ordained for a long time, and if that was what God was asking of me, I wanted a church in which I could get ordained without having to be celibate. This narrowed my search down to the Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Metropolitan Community Churches. I tried a local Episcopal Church and fell in love almost instantly. Sexuality was talked about openly, I was allowed to be a Sunday school teacher and the priest herself was in a committed, same-sex relationship. I was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in June of 2009 and it felt like coming home.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology

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