A Pearl Harbor kissing photo op, and a Honolulu Marriage Equality march, on the first day of the Supreme Court's Prop 8 hearings.

by Rev. Steve Parelli
March 27, 2031
Aqua Aloha Surf & Spa Hotel
Kanekapolei Street
Honolulu, Hawaii



Steve Parelli, right and Joe Ortiz, MO Battleship,
Pearl Harbor, March 26, 2013,
first day of Supreme Court hearing
on Prop 8.  Steve and Jose were married in
Sacramento, California, on March 25, 2008.

This is our first time to Hawaii, and yesterday was our first full day in the 50th state. 

Jose and I are here celebrating a milestone in my life. I turned 60 years old in January, and this week-long vacation in Hawaii is Jose's birthday gift to me.

We planned two activities for our first day:  Pearl Harbor in the morning and a tour of the Mission House in the late afternoon, a National Historic Site, the site where New England missionaries, in the early 1800s, lived and worked to introduce Christianity to the islands.

What we didn't plan was our participation in the Honolulu Inter-faith Equality March.  We stumbled onto that event.  Following our Mission House tour, we made our way to the huge grounds of the close-by historic Palace.

While walking the Palace grounds, a young man at quite a distance away, kept waving to us to come over. We could make out that he was with a small group with signs of some kind.

"Maybe," I said to Jose, "its a Marriage Equality march." After all, today was the first day of the Supreme Court hearing of Proposition 8, the California ballot box decision that repealed marriage equality in California. Jose and I were married in Sacramento, California, on August 25, 2008.

Honolulu Inter-faith Marriage Equality March,
March 26, 2013.

Throughout the day we had kept ourselves abreast of whatever news we could get on the Washington, DC, events around this historic day, reading articles on our cell phones, while coming and going on the public buses.

At Pearl Harbor, after touring the Missouri Battleship, we posed for a picture, kissing one another, alongside a famous statue of that WW II sailor spontaneously kissing a woman, also in uniform. We made the picture to celebrate, on this first day of the Supreme Court's Proposition 8 hearings, our August 25, 2008, California marriage. It was our way of connecting Hawaii (where the first Marriage Equality battle took place in state courts), with Sacramento (where we were married) with the Supremem Court initial hearings on Proposition 8.  It was our small symbolic way of support.

Honolulu Interfaith Marriage Equaility March,
Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kupono Kwong (center) of
First Unitarian Church of Honolulu,
with Rev. Steve Parelli (left) and Jose Ortiz
March 26, 2013

Little did we know, upon the taking of our symbolic photo of support at the Missouri Battleship, that before the day was over we would be marching in an Iner-faith Honolulu Marriage Equality march in support of overturning Proposition 8.

I wondered what our 1800 New England missionaries to Hawaii would think about Marrige Equality.  After all, our tour-guide said the missionaries did not approve of the Hawaiian hula and were instrumental in legally removing its practice from the islands. 

I felt I knew, however, what Eleanor Roosevelt would think about Marriage Equality.  Overlooking Pearl Harbor there is a quote in stone by the First Lady.  She said something like this that she must now, in view of all who give their lives for our freedom, ask herself if her life is worth dying for.  To live the Golden Rule, wherever we are, is a worthy life.
 

NFL Player Matt Birk vs. the Iowa Supreme Court on Gay Marriage

by Rev. Stephen Parelli

October 4, 2012

Bronx, New York

 

While supporting the right of his teammate Brendon Ayanbadejo, a Baltimore Ravens linebacker, to publically declare his support for same-sex marriage, Matt Birk, a center for the Baltimore Ravens, took issue with him and advanced his own counter-view on the marriage equality debate by authoring an opinion editorial that was recently published in his home state, in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

 

Birk offered but one argument for defining marriage as between a man and a woman:  “The union of a man and a woman is privileged and recognized by society as ‘marriage’ for a reason, and it's not because the government has a vested interest in celebrating the love between two people.  With good reason, government recognizes marriages and gives them certain legal benefits so they can provide a stable, nurturing environment for the next generation of citizens: our kids.”  Later, in the same piece, he repeats his argument:  “Marriage redefinition will affect the broader well-being of children and the welfare of society.  As a Christian and a citizen, I am compelled to care about both.”

 

This NFL player’s opinion needs to go up against the big league.  How about the Iowa Supreme Court? 

 

In their April 3, 2009, ruling that decided “the state statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman unconstitutional,” the Iowa  Supreme Court examined the argument that “the optimal environment for children is to be raised within a marriage of both a mother and a father.”  The Court, after hearing “an abundance of evidence and research,” and confirming the findings by independent research, “that the children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents,” concluded that opposition to same-sex marriage “is less about using marriage to achieve an optimal environment for children and more about merely precluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage.” This conclusion led the Court to further remark that “stereotype and prejudice, or some other unarticulated reason [rather than optimal environment for children], could be present to explain the real objectives” to same-sex marriage.

 

At the end of their ruling, after having rejected other arguments against same-sex marriage, the Court writes:  “Now that we have addressed and rejected each specific interest advanced” in defense of marriage as limited to a man and a woman “we consider the reason for the expulsion of gay and lesbian couples from civil marriage left unspoken . . . : “religious opposition [emphasis mine] to same-sex marriage.”

 

Obviously, Birk is no match for the Iowa Supreme Court.  In fact, his plea for dropping the “bigot” and “homophobic” labels for “people [like himself] who are simply acknowledging the basic reality of marriage between one man and one woman” losses ground against the Court’s statement:  “Whether expressly or impliedly, much of society rejects same-sex marriage due to sincere, deeply ingrained – even fundamental – religious belief.” 

 

In place of “bigotry,” one might say Birk is “religiously intolerant” especially in view of the fact that “marriage is a civil contract” and not a religious order or rite or creed.  Just as government, says the Court, “does not prescribe a definition of marriage for religious institutions,” neither, explains the Court, in a free society, do religious institutions, through the implementation of laws, impose upon society their particular religious views and practices.  “Civil marriage,” wrote the Iowa Supreme Court, “must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrines or the religious views of individuals.”  In this sense, Birk is either un-American, uninformed of the American way, or simply religiously intolerant of his fellow-citizens who hold a different belief system on marriage.

 

Is he “homophobic?”  Sure he is, even in spite of the fact that his pro-gay-marriage teammate Brendon Ayanbadejo tweeted “I don’t think he’s homophobic.” Matt Birk is buying into, and playing on, people’s fears when he says: “Marriage redefinition will affect the broader well-being of children and the welfare of society.” And when he ties his homophobia to his religious beliefs by saying “as a Christian and a citizen, I am compelled to care about both [society and children]” he is displaying his religious intolerance, tempting others to come very close to using the words “religious bigotry.”   

 

If we go with the Iowa Supreme Court’s assessment, Matt Birk, on the issue of gay marriage and optimum environment for children, is prejudice, or is being stereotypical, or his religious beliefs have left him totally partial.

 

According to Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, “Maryland state delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Ravens fan, wrote a letter to the Ravens owner, Steve Bisciotti, asking him to prohibit his players from offering political commentary.”  Matt Birk might do well to take that advice long enough to do his homework.  As for Brendon Ayanbadejo who was the player that upset Burns with his pro-gay marriage comments, he needs to go right on upsetting the state delegate long enough until the state delegate sits down and carefully reads, and fully comprehends, the Iowa Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.

Parelli and Ortiz featured in September 22, 2012, Martinique newspaper around gay marriage debate

"God loves gays!"("Dieu aime les homosexuels! »)
L.V. (Louvinia Valat) / France-Antilles Martinique 22 Sept 2012

To be Christians while remaining free to live one's sexual orientation: that is the credo of Stephen Parelli and Jose Ortiz.


FRANCE-ANTILLES MARTINIQUE
NEWSPAPER, Saturday, September 22, 2012, issue

FRANCE-ANTILLES MARTINIQUE NEWSPAPER, Saturday, September 22, 2012, issueArticle (originally in French) by Louvinia Valat, Journalist, France-Antilles Martinique
Translated to English by Stanley Hanks

TESTIMONIAL. Stephen Parelli and Jose Ortiz serve as director and coordinator, respectively, of the association "Other Sheep", a group which defends the idea that one can be Christian and gay at the same time, without betraying God or one's faith. This is the battle they have been fighting for over 15 years, both as a couple and as Protestant Christians. This is currently of particular relevance for us in view of the parliamentary debate over gay marriage.

Stephen Parelli and Jose Ortiz visited us in August for a few days before going to St. Lucia to hold a series of workshops on controversial subjects such as: Can one be both Christian and gay? What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Doesn't it treat it as a perversion, an abomination?

Stephen and Jose are, above all, a couple - and they have been together for fifteen years. They are Christians, and they have been legally married since 2008. We would never have had the chance of meeting them if their homosexuality hadn't made it necessary for them to reconsider their faith in the light of their sexual orientation.

In the US, their home country, and everywhere else in the world where Christians await their visit, Stephen Parelli
(Director of Other Sheep) and Jose Ortiz (Coordinator for Asia and Africa) do their best to show that "God is love"
(1 John 4). It is a love which is not exclusive or sectarian.

To prove this, they support their case with the Bible. But without flights of fantasy or extrapolation: instead, they
apply a scholarly approach. Both Steve and Jose have concluded Bible studies at bachelor's degree level; Stephen,
who also holds a Masters in theology, served as a pastor for approximately twenty years. They base their
arguments on the text - or, to be more specific, on a reading of the text in light of the evolution undergone by
society.

IMPOSSIBLE TO BE "EX-GAY"For these two men, their battle necessarily possesses a very personal component. For years, formerly convinced
that their faith was incompatible with their love, they had attempted to stop being gay! They had tried, for instance,
by attending support groups for "Christians who are trying to overcome their attraction for people of the same sex",
praying constantly and waiting for a miracle which was not to occur - until they finally had to give up. "We finally
came to realize that it is impossible to be 'ex-gay'."

However, their mission is not a crusade for homosexuality. Rather, they are fighting for the fundamental right to be a Christian. Neither are they defending a Protestant approach as opposed to Catholic "certitudes", for, in their view,
"all Churches are concerned".

That is what inspires the two to take up their pilgrim's rod and travel the world to meet with Christians everywhere.

Their goal is to exchange views with them in a series of workshops, using materials edited and published by Other
Sheep, in the hope that these Christians will grow to understand that "God accepts gays, lesbians, bisexuals and
transgender people".

To contact Steve and Jose, or to find further information, you can visit the website www.othersheepexecsite.com.

The NAACP returns to relevance with a vote on same-sex marriage

By Eugene Robinson, Published: May 21The Washington Post

With its support for gay marriage, the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has done more than strike a blow for fairness and equality. The nation’s most venerable civil rights organization has made itself relevant again.

The NAACP’s 64-member board approved a resolution Saturday supporting “marriage equality” not as a matter of empathy or compassion but as a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. In citing this rationale, the 103-year-old organization founded by W.E.B. Du Bois firmly linked the campaign for gay rights to the epic African American struggle for freedom and justice.

Read more . . .

Below is the text of the resolution passed by the NAACP board of directors:

Released on May 19, 2012, by the NAACP

The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the “political, educational, social and economic equality” of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment.

A Tale of Two Weddings: Ostracism vs. Familial Love, and the anti-gay lady who failed to discern the look of ostracisim

By Rev. Steve Parelli, Bronx, NY

Saturday, April 29, 2012

Last weekend (April 20-22, 2012) I presented at the annual retreat of Connecting Families, a Mennonite/Brethren fellowship for gays and their straight families who support them (parents and siblings).  It was the perfect place to tell my tale of two weddings.  Using my PowerPoint, I displayed the two photos that dipicted the two weddings.

The First Photo:
Me demonstrating for
Marriage Equality with
a photo of me and my
husband on our
wedding day.

The first, I explained, was taken on my wedding day, August 25, 2008. (See the photo at right.) The second, was taken on the eve of my nephew's wedding day in September of 2011 during the reception held for family members and the wedding party - a time to mix and meet the bride and groom's family and friends.  (See the photo below.)

The story of the first photo plays out at the June 20, 2011, Marriage Equality rally in Albany, NY. I had enlarged our wedding-day photo of my husband and me and had it mounted on a carrying board to hold high over my head (for security reasons, the poster could not be attached to a stick).

While demonstrating in the halls of the capital building, a lady who was demonstrating against marriage equality walked up behind me and, without stopping, spoke into my ear from over my shoulder.  "You don't look happy in that photo," she said.  She continued walking pass me. I never saw her face.  Only her back.  She was a slight bit taller than me, slender and well dressed, and had brown, shoulder-length hair. 

Funny, but I didn't fault her for not making eye contact; for not looking me in the face.  The people from the opposing side were, after all, representative of my own flesh and blood family - my parents, my siblings, my children and ex-wife.  And I understand their religious, cultural disdain, knowing just how ingrained their sentiment is.

Further more, she was right, I didn't look totally happy in my wedding-day photo.  But if only I could have explained to her in what sense she was right.  There is just the slightest sadness in my face on my wedding day.  But not for the reason she implied, that gays can't possibly be happy.  Just the thought - that gays can't ever be really happy - reminds me of a book I read in the 1970s by Tim LaHaye, The Unhappy Gays.  Every reason he gave in the book as to why gays must be unhappy have proven all irrelevant in my own 14 years of living with my significant other.  In fact, I was unhappy before I came out!

Why then was I somewhat sad on my wedding day?  For this one single reason: ostracism.  My accuser should have allowed me my own explanation as to my sadness.  For just about 11 years (from October 1997 to August 2008), I was completely cut off from my immediate family.  The two years leading up to my grandmother's death my father had told me that if I were to show up at his mother's funeral he would take a bat to my head.  Some time prior to that, my father had told me I was dead to him and that if my mother were to die a premature, stress-related death, I would be the cause.  My mother wrote me a letter in her own hand writing telling me she willing stood with my dad in rejecting me.  My four children, following in their grandfather's step, refused me contact and declined to invite me to their graduations and weddings.  I have three daughters, and the two who married publicly refused to invite me.  My father had placed street-clothed policemen at the wedding of my second daughter to throw me out in the event I may have come on my own.  Cards I sent to family members on various occasions were returned.  At Christmas time and birthdays, gifts I sent were never acknowledged (although checks were always chashed).  Ostracism of the most fundamentalist, separatist, religious-right kind was maintained.

When I married my significant other in California, I was fortunate to have at our side my husband's cousin, his wife and their daughter.  They were every bit family to us.  They loved us, and welcomed us into their home in Sacramento.  But, on this day - one of the happiest days of my life - , there was not a single immediate family member on my side who recognized me (my brother had just/ or was in the beginnings of reconciling with me, I don't recall just when; and my aunt and uncle on my mother's side had accepted us right along, welcoming us into their home - they were a real blessing and comfort). 

The Second Photo:
My husband (far left) and me (second from left) at
my brother's son's wedding-eve reception.  My first
family event in almost 14 years!

The second photo, of my nephew's September 2011 wedding-eve reception, was taken just three months after the lady's uninformed comment at the Albany capital demonstration.  For the first time in almost 14 years I (and my husband with me) was invited to a family event on my side.  My brother and his family had since reconciled with me.  Jose (my spouse) and I were invited to the wedding.  Ironically, my brother's family had separated from my father because his extreme, religious rigidity in other moral matters he deemed important was taking a toll on everyone.

In the second photo you can see the unbelievable look on my face!  How hilariously happy I am.  The ostracism over, at least with my brother and his family!  Yes, I did not give away my own daughters at their wedding, but here, at my brother's son wedding, my husband (Jose) and I are completely surrounded, and loved, by family.

If only the lady who had made her undiscerning (and cutting) remarks about how unhappy I was on my wedding day had really known the cause for the sadness, the hole in my heart that only family can fill.  If she had stopped to talk with me she would have understood that marriage equality and the full acceptance of family, church and society, makes the differeence in how happy a gay individual may be.  In society, in the church, and among our families, gay singles and gay couples need to be fully recognized and loved.  Watch then how our faces will light up with happiness!  Her charge against me falls on her own head - the cause of unhappiness lies not in being gay, but in being wrongfully ostracised.

So, was I happy on my wedding day?  Yes, for the right reasons; and no for the right reasons.  Yes, for the love of my significant other and for his family that supported us in love; no, for the reason that my immediate loved ones still were, after 10 years, completely ostracising me.  They could not be happy for me, nor with me.

God forgive the anti-gay lady who wrongly judged my wedding-day photo and bless the state of New York for granting marriage equality, for knowing better than my own family members and the evangelical church in which I grew up, how to love, accept and shun discrimination and inequality.

 

Marriage Equality has come to New York, my home state

by Rev. Steve Parelli

Bronx, NY

June 24, 2011

"If Christian mercy is gone, then at least Venetian justice still exists." - From the movie Dangerous Beauty.

New York passes Marriage Equality!

Where I could not find, as a gay man, "Christian mercy" within my own evangelical Baptist denomination and within my own nuclear "born-again" Christian family, I have, instead, been handed justice from my secular State. 

I grew up in up-state NY; my first senior pastorate was in Western NY where two of my four children were born; and NY is where I have lived with my spouse (married in California in 2008) since 1997.

Photo at left:  Rev. Steve Parelli at Albany state capital demonstrating for Marriage Equality, June 20, 2011.  Photo by Kelly Mapes

Joe Solomese may have it backwards when it comes to Obama in DC and the republicans in Albany

By Rev. Steve Parelli

Steve Parelli at June 20,
2011, demonstration
for Marriage
Equality

Bronx, NY

June 24, 2011

Marriage Equality:  Who's Walking Slowly and Who's Evolving?  Does Joe Solomese of the HRC have it all backwards?

I just  heard Joe Solomese on Andrea Mitchell msnbc say that Obama is "evolving" while the republicans in Albany are "walking slowly." Actually, it is the republicans who are "evolving" and Obama is "walking slowly." Andrea Mitchell in her live one-on-one interview asked Solomese all the right critical questions about Obama's "evolving" but Joe didn't have any hard answers for fear, so it appeared, of putting Obama in even the slightest of bad light. 

If you paid over $30,000 to hear the president speak at last evening's NYC LGBT event, then I suppose you wouldn't want to throw cold water on the occasion, either.  Seems Joe doesn't wish to.  Even so, for that kind-of-a-price, its worth getting it right:  Obama is walking slowly and the republicans in Albany are evolving.

A republican and evangelical Christian, former Iowa state Senator Jeff Angelo supports marriage equality

Rev. Steve Parelli
Albany, NY
June 20, 2011
Photo by Kelly Mapes

Posted by Rev. Stephen Parelli

Bronx, NY

June 24, 2011

Another leading republican and evangelical for Marriage Equality

According to an article by Loren A. Olson (M.D. - Psychiatrist) in yesterday's The Huffington Post (dated June 23, 2011), entitled Iowa Republicans for Marriage Equality,

"former Iowa state Senator Jeff Angelo launched Iowa Republicans for Freedom whose mission is to change the hearts and minds of Iowa's social conservatives who currently oppose marriage equality.

"Angelo was a three-term state Senator who did not seek reelection in 2008. He has not always been on the side of same-sex marriage. Five years ago, Angelo, an evangelical Christian, co-sponsored a bill to amend the state's constitution to prohibit marriage between same-sex couples. Now he says that his views have evolved because of his relationships with Iowans who have families with same-sex couples. Angelo has said that he believes his new position is consistent with basic GOP values: individual freedom, limited government, and the pursuit of happiness."

Editor's Personal Note: I grew up evangelical and up-state NY republican.  So then -- I'm so excited when I see the religious political conservative person shift in his/her thinking. It has been, in large part, my mission to focus on "people like me" in telling my story. Putting a face on homosexuality within the community in which I grew up. (Jose, my spouse, also grew up evangelical.) - Steve Parelli

Bible characters David and Jonathan were lovers says my neighbor, Jonathan Atkin, in an email to NY Senators telling them to vote "Yes" on Marriage Equality

"President of Brandeis and Judaic scholar pointed out to me nearly 25 years ago, in the synagogue, during the high holidays, how King David and Jonathan were documented as lovers" - Jonathan Atkin

Editor's note :  Jonathan Atkin is my neighbor.  Jose (my spouse) and I met him by chance one day while returning from the subway to our home.  You guessed it, he's an openly gay man.  We've kept in touch.  He asked me for the names of the conservative NY Senators who are known to be in opposition to Marriage Equality.  Here's what he wrote them. I especially like the part about David and Jonathan - Steve Parelli

June 23rd 2011
Dear NY State Senators:

I am a captain and certified boat handler. To navigate in smooth seas, is never easy. To navigate in rough storms takes exceptional skills and leadership.

At the least, I expect leadership from the Albany Senate, not head in the sands or ducking into safe harbors on the threat of rain drops or political retribution. That is just wrong.

Pass the marriage act, now, that provides basic rights to same sex couples that other Americans take for granted.

Those of you who are hiding behind religious objections and obfuscations: SHAME. This is a country that has in theory, separation of church and state.

Those of you who need religious bolstering, my god father, now passed, and former President of Brandeis and Judaic scholar pointed out to me nearly 25 years ago, in the synagogue, during the high holidays, how King David and Jonathan were documented as lovers. Judaism at least nodded its history to reality thousands of years ago. It is more than enough time to act on this to bring the United States up to standards that recognizes universal rights for all. Otherwise our vaunted values of this country become a mockery.

If there are legal issues regarding venues, non profits and faith based groups that simply want to avoid law suits then, sure, write into the legislation their exemption. No big deal. There are plenty of organizations, venues, and others that will be glad to reap the millions of dollars in economic stimulus that equality of marriage will bring to them. The others, will be left out. Too bad.

In closing, after you pass this seemingly monumental legislation, in two years, everyone will be scratching their heads and saying, wow, what was all the fuss about? The world will continue to revolve, the US will continue to prosper, the heavens will not unleash biblical plagues and we will all be just fine.

So, stop the bickering, the small mindedness, resolve the issues and pass the bill.

Kind regards,

Captain Jonathan Atkin
Bronx, NY
http://www.shipshooter.com/

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Former evangelical Baptist minister goes to Albany in support of Marriage Equality

Rev. Steve Parelli,
former evangelical Baptist
minister for Marriage Equality
Albany, NY.  June 20, 2011

By Steve Parelli
June 20, 2011
Bronx, NY

My "Marriage Equality Demonstration at Albany Capital, June 20, 2011" web page has the following items:

• ABC 7 Eyewitness News video with Steve's poster board photo of Steve and Jose on their wedding day
• WCBS-TV video of Steve with poster board wedding day photo
• Nathaniel Brooks of The New York Times photo shot of Steve with poster board, wedding-day photo
• Photo of Steve Parelli with David Tyree
• Video of religious right singing
• Letter to Five Key Senators
• A personal writing on how I felt demonstrating

Former evangelical Baptist minister holds his gay wedding-day photo high above the opposition at the Albany captial same-sex marrioage demonstration

By Steve Parelli
June 21, 2011
Bronx, NY

Rev. Steve Parelli holding
wedding-day photo

The euphoric feelings that caused me to breakout in dance! (Like David before the ark)

Outside the state Senate chambers in Albany, I danced down the hallways between two rows of the chanting, singing religious right who were opposing marriage equality. It was liberating.

I was standing at one end of the hall with other marriage equality supporters. This particular group from the religious right were lining both sides of the hall, separate from where we were standing.

I decided to walk between the rows of the religious objectors with my head held high -- with my wedding-day poster board photo held above. The picture said it all: I am a very grateful gay man for the wonderful partner, I believe, God has granted me.

I felt so victorious, so vindicated, so lucky to be me - a gay man - with a loving partner, that I began to dance as I walked.

At times I looked heavenward toward the ceilings of the hall in happy self-affirmation, as if God were smiling.

"This is my father's world" they sang. And I sang it, too. It was liberating to raise my voice in chorus with theirs, albeit our singing had to carry two-different implied meanings.

Rev. Steve Parelli displaying his wedding-day photo
 before the religious right opposition.  State capital,
Albany, NY.  June 20, 2011

For one Christian (myself) to stand before one's opposition - other Christians (them) - and say "No, this is what I am before God as I understand God for myself,"  is the historic Reformation cry. It is the spirit of Protestantism: To know and believe in God according to the dictates of one's own conscience.

I was protesting in that spirit before today's inheritors of the ways of the Reformers.

And, like then, to protest openly, before your religious brother, against the generally accepted body of belief was for me, in these halls of the state capital, very liberating.

As a New Yorker and a former evangelical Baptist pastor, I urge you, Senator, to vote for marriage equality

From: Stephen Parelli
To: flanagan@senate.state.ny.us; mcdonald@senate.state.ny.us; alesi@senate.state.ny.us; saland@nysenate.gov; grisanti@nysenate.gov
Sent: Wed, June 15, 2011 6:54:39 PM
Subject: As a New Yorker and a former evangelical Baptist pastor, I urge you to vote for marriage equality

To: John Flanagan	(518) 455-2071	flanagan@senate.state.ny.us
Roy McDonald	(518) 455-2381	mcdonald@senate.state.ny.us
James Alesi	(518) 455-2015	alesi@senate.state.ny.us
Stephen Saland	(518) 455-2411	saland@nysenate.gov
Mark Grisanti	(518) 455-3240	grisanti@nysenate.gov

From:

Rev. Stephen R. Parelli, MDiv

Executive Director
Other Sheep
2962 Decatur Ave., 5D
Bronx, NY 10458
718-360-0884 (office/home)
347-497-0861 (cell)
www.othersheep.org

Re:

Please vote for Marriage Equality

Message:

I grew up in the Syracuse, NY, area. I now live in NYC with my partner of 13 years. We were married in 2008 in California. He is a native of Brooklyn. I was an evangelical Baptist pastor until age 44. I am now 58 years old.

My partner, Jose Ortiz - a guidance counselor in the NYC public schools - and I both grew up evangelical Christians and were both taught that our sexual orientation is an abomination before God. It will be decades before the evangelical church welcomes us, I fear. We trust we don't have to wait that long for our civil rights.

My conscience before God is clear. I am a gay man. By nature? By nurture? Or both? I don't know; but this I know: I am constitutionally gay. May New York State give me marriage equality irrespective of what religion may or may not teach about same-sex marriage; and may I choose to attend the church that best represents my views and my convictions about my sexual orientation.

Vote for equality; let the church be the church and let the state be the state. Please vote for equality. Vote for sexual minorities.

(My parents have cast their "vote" - they have chosen to not speak to me ever; they live in the Cortland, NY, area. If you listen to constituents like my parents -- like the James Dobson crowd -- you will vote no. My own parents have disowned me -- I pray my state will not disown me. My right as a gay man to marriage equality in no way hinders the James Dobson crowd's right to marriage; why do they choose to keep from me the rights they enjoy?)

------End of email to the Senators-----------------------------

Note:  The above Senator names were provided by Citizen Link, A Focus on the Family Affiliate.  Of course, I used Citizen Link's action alert to tell the senators just the opposite of what Focus on the Family was asking for.

Evangelical Chuck Colon’s statement on Armageddon and marriage equality is at odds with the long-standing writings of “ex-gay” proponents Davies and Rentzel

By Rev. Stephen Parelli, Executive Director of Other Sheep
Posted: Monday Morning, August 9, 2010
Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala, India

On Wednesday, August 4, US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled to overturn California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage.

Evangelical political activist Chuck Colson told BreakPoint listeners, “I have warned you for months that our religious freedoms are imperiled. Well, Armageddon may be close at hand if a new court decision holds up.”

No doubt, for Chuck Colson, the Bible story of the fire of judgment that rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah is a kind of “Armageddon” against any society that would tolerate homosexuals. It appears that Colson believes the ultimate God-defying act of society is marriage equality. Hence, according to Colson, “Armageddon may be close at hand” because of Walker's ruling to overturn California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage

Colson’s view is completely in opposition to evangelical “ex-gay” leaders – Christian counselors who advocate that Christian homosexuals can and should change. As early as 1993, “ex-gay” counselors and authors Bob Davies and Lori Rentzel, commenting on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in their book Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men & Women, wrote: “Pro-gay theologians are correct in saying that this passage (Gen. 19, Sodom and Gomorrah) does not provide a strong argument against prohibiting all homosexual acts” [page 184].

Colson is at odds with his own evangelical counterparts who lead in counseling evangelical gay Christians to leave their “life style” of homosexuality. Colson’s Old Testament Armageddon is not a story of God’s abhorrence of marriage equality as he supposes, but a story of violence, abuse, assault and inhospitality. “Ex-gay” leaders like Davies and Rentzel have rightly distanced themselves from any claims that Sodom and Gomorrah “provide[s] a strong argument against prohibiting all homosexual acts.”

Obviously, Colson’s Armageddon as God’s hatred for marriage equality is misnamed. Love between two consenting adults is not the content of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Any serious reader can easily discern that much. The city of Sodom has been misrepresented for centuries in the West by both religious and secular leaders by the use of its name to demean, condemn and discriminate against same-sex love. Certainly, “sodomy” so-called, applied to marriage equality, is a violent misuse of the sacred text.

Colson needs to check-in with his fellow evangelicals who are proponents of the “ex-gay” movement. Evidently, they decided more than fifteen years ago that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing to do with same-sex sex between two consenting adults. So where’s Colson’s Armageddon? Well, it isn’t coming on the heels of loving, committed same-sex couples in California who choose to marry.

[Note: The author of this article has written a paper explaining why he does not support the evangelical "ex-gay" movement.]