Rainbows, lollipops and (fingers crossed) sunshine!

Tomorrow weather and energy permitting I'm going to my first Pride celebration so when I came across this blog http://walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.co.uk it felt like fate.

'Walking with Integrity' are a church campaign in America who don't just passively accept people but go to Pride festivals and welcome people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. They are campaigners for gay rights too.

So often all you hear about with the church in the US is those awful publicity hounds of the Westboro Baptist Church. As a Christian (albeit one having a crisis of faith) these people hurt me as they can't fail to give all Christians a bad name. I was so pleased to find that somewhere in the world the accepting, loving and welcoming face of Christianity, the one that I believe is most prevalent but all too quiet, is taking a stand.

I enjoyed one sermon on the site so much that I wanted to post a little of it here. It starts with a heartfelt appreciation of the joy of finding your partner....

"It is no small consolation in this life to have someone you can unite with you in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love, someone in whom your spirit can rest, to whom you can pour out your soul, to whose pleasant exchanges, as to soothing songs, you can fly in sorrow… with whose spiritual kisses, as with remedial salves, you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties. A man who can shed tears with you in your worries, be happy with you when things go well, search out with you the answers to your problems, whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart; . . . where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you, where you so join yourself and cleave to him that soul mingles with soul and two become one."


and goes on to admit some hard truths and call for people to make some difficult amends...

"We are asking the church to do exactly what my friend said they must do - recognize that its teaching has been wrong and admit that it has harmed many children of G-d in the process. In the words of the confession we will use today, it means being able and willing to admit that “We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created.” 

But that is only the first step. It also means, in the words of the Confession, that we must “repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” Having lived through the painful process of desegregation in Central Florida in the 1960s, I know only too well how difficult it can be to admit that you were wrong, that your understandings, words and behavior have been harmful to others and to realize that you had no choice but to repent, to change your mind, change directions, change your life if you were to live a life of intellectual honesty and integrity. The cognitive dissonance that arises from such a realization is painful and incredibly disorienting."

And finally, a note of hope for the future

" ... One of the most encouraging things I have ever heard him (Jack Spong, reformed homophobic, now equal rights campaigner) say was that the outcome of our long struggle for gay and lesbian equality has not been in doubt for some time now, only the time table for the goal of full inclusion."

I hope they don't mind me reposting such a large swathe of the sermon but they are about spreading a message of love, and so it is my privilege to pass it on. I hope I demonstrate my support for my gay friends and at least some of them will let me be a bridesmaid at their wedding (hint, hint).

Blackberry, proudly purple!

xxx