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<\/a><\/div>\nIn talking with people from our congregation I\u2019m deeply impressed how so many have embraced a strong public stance in favor of the BGLTQ community, and in particular the drive for marriage equality in the lovely little state of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
And every once in a while someone does ask if we\u2019re on our way to being a gay church?<\/p>\n
My quick response is \u201cI certainly hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a bit glib. Of course. I would like us to also be a black church. It would tickle me endlessly to be a church of immigrants. I would be delighted beyond words if our church was a church for the working classes\u2026<\/p>\n
Our mission as I see it is simple enough. We are a church that calls each of us to investigate the matters of heart as deeply as possible. Our tradition particularly calls us to notice how precious the individual is, how beautiful in possibility, and how fragile. And in the next breath to notice how we as individuals find our existence as part of a vast and amazing and awesome web of relationships. We only exist within and because of each other.<\/p>\n
And, with the next breath how this means something in our lives. How it is important to see ourselves and the world as related.<\/p>\n
We are one family. Now that\u2019s a radical stance. We are related to everything.<\/p>\n
But we have closer relatives and more distant.<\/p>\n
And the call to be a gay church or a black church or a working class church or a church of immigrants is about being a church committed to compassion and justice and to call to the family to treat everyone with respect.<\/p>\n
When we get down to brass tacks about the specific issues of gay rights as manifested in the struggle for marriage equality, I ask you to remember five names.<\/p>\n
Asher Brown, 13, in Texas<\/p>\n
Billy Lucas, 15, in Indiana<\/p>\n
Seth Walsh, 13, in California<\/p>\n
Tyler Clementi, 18, in New Jersey<\/p>\n
Raymond Chase, 19, in Rhode Island<\/p>\n
It was because of Raymond, a student at Johnson and Wales University that a fair number of us from the church gathered for a vigil at Brown University.<\/p>\n