San Francisco Church Welcomes Openly Gay Clergy

On Sunday St. Mark's Evangelical Church in San Francisco held its first ceremony welcoming seven openly non-celibate gay pastors who had been previously barred. Since the church voted last summer to allow noncelibate, openly gay clergy members to serve, 185 congregations have left the denomination, according to the New York Times. That's less than two percent of the total number of congregations, pointing to a wider acceptance of LGBTQ people.

According to a May 2010 Gallup Poll, 44 percent of those surveyed thought that same sex-marriages should be recognized, up 2 percentage points from 2006, while the percentage of people who thought it should not be legally recognized decreased from 56 to 53 percent.

There is hope in these numbers, which may account for the vote by the Evangelical Church last year to let openly gay pastors to serve. There are only a handful of churches that ordain openly gay ministers and pastors, including the United Church of Christ, Reformed Catholic Church and Unitarian Universalists. These progressive churches are important to the gay rights movement considering 75 percent of the adult population in 2008 considered themselves Christian.

Still, there are still organizations like Exodus International, a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian group that promotes the message of “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.” The group basically teaches gay people how to repress their sexual orientation.

Lisa Gillespie is a former staff writer for Campus Progress as well as the Managing Editor & New Media Director at Street Sense. She graduated from the University of North Carolina–Asheville.