Significant majorities of U.S. religious groups favor nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans, including well more than half of white evangelicals, according to a new report from Public Religion Research Institute. The study was released March 23 as the U.S. Senate…
My journey toward LGBTQ inclusion: God still speaks
As a cisgendered heterosexual male, my own sexuality was not a problem in the Southern Baptist faith of my youth and young adulthood. Having come of age with the Moral Majority, though, I cannot remember a time when the question…
Vatican makes clear that Catholic churches might welcome LGBTQ Christians but cannot bless their unions
Pope Francis signaled a bit of welcome for LGBTQ Christians in October, but the Vatican made clear March 15 that the Catholic Church will not bless same-sex unions, which it considers to be a sinful “choice.” While the pope is the…
Indiana wants Supreme Court to let it deny parental rights to same-sex couples
While same-sex couples already were fretting that a new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court could turn the legality of future marriages back to the states, a more sinister threat to families has emerged from Indiana. On Nov. 23,…
If court reverses same-sex marriage it will do so against what majority of Americans want
While members of the LGBTQ community and their allies expressed fear and outrage over the rushed appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court this week, new polling data shows the American public is on their side —…
When you go to the polls, remember me
If you haven’t voted yet, this column is for you. With the election less than two weeks away, I want to share with you the story of my family. I was raised in the heart of evangelical Christianity in Colorado…
BNG’s Top 25 of the decade
Presented here are BNG’s top 25 news and opinion articles during the past decade.
A queer reconciliation: my journey from outcast to ordinand
Six years after performing my same-sex wedding, my dad was defrocked by the United Methodist Church. Testifying at the ecclesiastical trial was excruciating for me. Yet that experience – and the support our family received – also reignited my call to Christian ministry.
Pastor, judge, activist, agitator: As he strives for justice, Wendell Griffen stretches the lexicon of adjectives
Wendell Griffen, 66, is all of these things. But his persona is so large, his reputation so loud, his “rightness” so locked in and eagerly defended, that the man’s depth can be lost in the shallows in which he must wade.