Press Release: Former evangelical Baptist pastor testifies in support of marriage equality before the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee

Pastor tells committee Civil Union is a form of oppression
by Rev. Steve Parelli

Press Release –

Today’s Date:  February 3, 2012
For Immediate Release
Contact Person: 
Rev. Stephen Parelli
Executive Director, Other Sheep
Bronx, New York
718-360-0884

Speaking in support of gay marriage before the Assembly Judiciary Committee meeting in Trenton yesterday, Rev. Stephen Parelli told the committee he “pastored the Faith Baptist Church of Sparta, New Jersey, for about ten years before coming out in 1997 and starting, at that time, a new life with his husband Mr. Jose Ortiz.”

Parelli, who identified his “faith background [as] evangelical and Baptist,” said he married Ortiz in “2008, at the city hall of Sacramento, California” so that they “could care for each other legally” but “had no idea how impacting the marriage would be in terms of feeling equal like any other adult who lives and loves and marries.”  Parelli said the state of California gave him what the church and Civil Union could not:  equality and belonging. 

Parelli, adapting a quote from 19^th century abolitionist and Presbyterian minister Albert Barnes, said “no power out of the church could sustain discrimination against homosexuals for even an hour, if it were not sustained within the church.”

Parelli said “Civil Union is but another name for oppression.”  Citing his Baptist heritage, Parelli said concession and toleration are neither freedom nor liberty.  They are merely other names for oppression because they are the allowance of that which is not wholly approved.” 

Parelli told the committee members that they should not vote their conscience if their vote would “limit the free exercise of the conscience of others” and that it was for this reason that he opposed a referendum.

Rev. Parelli is the Executive Director of Other Sheep, an ecumenical Christian organization that empowers gay people of faith worldwide.  Since 2005, Rev. Parelli, along with his husband, has spoken in 16 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia on the intersecting of religion and homophobia.  In 2009, Rev. Parelli, having been defrocked by his Baptist denomination, received clergy credentials from the Metropolitan Community Church.

You can read Rev. Parelli's full remarks to the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee by clicking here