chico chupacabra wrote:

<snip>

> questions about my
> motivations, e.g., "What denomination are you and why are you here?"

That's reasonable. I don't know why you are so hostile to
*** people in the church unless I know what religious
group you came from. A lot of it is cultural ignorance
or literalist Biblical interpretation. People who come
from denominations with a different approach to studying
the Bible, like classical Anglicans/Episcopalians, are
often more open to other interpretations.

And a lot of it comes from *** people being more visible.
Derek couldn't have done what he did to us while we were
in California, because people in the church there knew us.
We had friends, I'd been involved in altar guild and
licensed by the bishop as a Lay Eucharistic Minister,
been sponsored for Cursillo and attended, given altar
vessels and other things to my parish, and so on. People
would have known what Derek claimed was ridiculous.
But here, no one knew us very well, and they were willing
to accept Derek's wild accusations at face value. I think
that was why he waited to attack us until we moved.

The same is true of *** people in general. When ***
people can come out in the church and be involved
openly in congregations and ministries, even be
clergy, people see they are just people, fellow
Christians, sinners like all of us, but no more so
than other Christians. That has happened over the
last several decades in places like California and New
Hampshire In places like Africa, where gays are still
invisible in many places, people believe whatever
the anti-*** people claim about them. It's always
an uphill battle for minorities.