Kevin and Darren live in Portland Oregon and are a gay, committed couple. We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all...regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race, nationality, financial status, and being. Erase man-made borders and "they" become "we". New Site:
[Darryl Fears- Washington Post]
On the Sunday that a minister preached that God did not love people like her, Jacquelyn Holland wanted to storm out of the church. But she sat and listened to the sermon, even as her homosexual orientation was called "an abomination" and equated with "murder, a heinous crime," Holland said.
"This person just eliminated me," Holland, 46, said of the preacher she heard two years ago. Holland is now a minister in Unity Fellowship Church of Christ in Newark, which accepts people of all sexual orientations. She was one of many people at a Unity-sponsored conference of black gay and transgender Christians here who said such sermons are common in mainstream black places of worship.
Now, as the debate has intensified over whether same-sex marriage should be legalized or constitutionally banned, what some black gay Christians characterize as a long-standing "don't ask, don't tell" relationship between them and their churches is coming under greater strain.
A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that since 2000, black Protestants have become far less likely than other Protestant groups to believe that gays should have equal rights. Black Protestant support for gay rights dipped to a low of 40 percent this year, down from 65 percent in 1996 and 59 percent in 1992.
Among all the other groups surveyed - including not only other Protestants, but also Catholics, Latino Catholics, Jews and members of unaffiliated churches -- support for gay rights increased over the same period.
Black Christians' attitudes toward homosexuality reflect the traditional church teachings - and other factors specific to the black experience in America. Ram A. Cnaan, director of the study of organized religion and social work at the University of Pennsylvania, attributed the feeling among black Protestants to their historical experience of discrimination.
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