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.

My husband Jose and I met in February of 1997, 15 years ago this month

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to all lovers, friends and significant relationships of whatever type -- however you define and experience your togetherness!

How Jose and Steve met: 

An Ex-"Ex-gay" Love Story

By Rev. Steve Parelli, Bronx NY, September 7, 2005

[Excerpt]

February 1997.  Calvary Baptist Church, 57th Street, Manhattan, New York. A Tuesday evening "ex-gay" support group called HOPE led by an "ex-gay" deacon of Calvary Baptist Church. That's where Steve and Jose
met.

Steve had arrived early that evening. Perhaps as much as forty-five minutes early. He had come in from New Jersey, about an hour and half travel time away. Though this was his first time to this "ex-gay" meeting, it was by no means his first attempt at "ex-gay" help.

Read more . . .

Jose Ortiz, left, and Rev. Steve Parelli
participants in the Soulforce Action at
Bishop Eddie Long's church.
Here, seated in the Hospitality Suit of
the church where the meeting
with the Bishop took place.

[Excerpt]

Steve stood and spoke intently with the first person who entered the room there on 57th Street, Manhattan. Then a second person entered and a third. The two of them stood close by and engaged in conversation with each other. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed the third man, a handsome dark-skinned man of moderate height with Caucasian features, a Spanish-African New Yorker of Puerto-Rican decent. His name was Jose.

Read more . . .

Rev. Steve Parelli tells young Christian lay leaders in India the Church must move towards welcoming the gay community

Reporting from the conference grounds,

Thursday, July 7, 20100
By Rev. Steve Parelli

In the second session of the first day of the Young Lay Leaders Conference, sponsored by Trivandrum Theological Forum, Amirtham Ecumenical Trust and Other Sheep, Rev. Steve Parelli, Executive Director of Other Sheep, presented a paper, using the medium of PowerPoint, on "An Inclusive Community or What the Church in India must consider towards becoming a Welcoming and Affirming Church for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) people."

Young Lay Leaders Conference, southern Kerala, India,
July 7-9, 2011.
Jose Ortiz and Rev Steve Parelli of Other Sheep, third and
fourth from left, front row (on knees)

Before presenting his paper, Parelli gave an overview of his life as a gay Christian from his teen years to his mid-life adult years when, at that time, he accepted himself as gay and Christian.  Parelli introduced his husband Jose Ortiz who is presenting on the second day of the conference.  They were married, he said, in the USA, in the state of California, on August 25, 2009.

In the first part of his presentation, Parelli said the church needs to have an understanding of its own history of exclusion and make whatever correctives are necessary.  Quoting Dr. George Nalunnakkal of the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, Parelli said, "India's traditional silence on 'sexuality' is nothing but a celebrated myth.  In fact, the Indian mind had always engaged sexuality in a very open and radical manner.  It was, in fact the colonizers who had brought to India their 'values' and ethos, which suppressed the Indian tradition."

In his second part, Parelli said the church needs to understand what 'grid' the church is using when reading the Bible.  Is it an inclusive grid, or a discriminating grid; is it culturally and socially subservient or subversive.  Parelli said the church should be open to radical and critical thinking in moving towards inclusiveness.

Parelli said he moved from "thinking Biblically" to "thinking critically" when he awoke one day to the thought, "What if the church is wrong?"  He called this his "first epiphany" in moving towards accepting himself as a gay man.  He said his "second epiphany" came when he realized Romans 1:26, 27 - the "against nature" passage - was not about him.  He said it was an intellectually violent upheaval, an  about-face when he came to the realization that "nothing in Romans 1 is about me." 

In his third part, Parelli talked about the church's need for a love ethic.  Parelli said James B. Nelson makes the claim that there is no biblical sex ethic, only a love ethic;  that, for example, "there is no explicit prohibition" in the Bible on premarital sex between consenting adults.

Parelli said the religious leaders of Jesus' day "narrowed the love of God until it included only themselves" whereas Jesus had "widened the love of God until it reached out to all men" [William Barclay].

Parelli, making reference tp David Myers and Letha Scanzoni (What God Has Joined Together), said we are social beings with the innate desire to belong.  Parelli noted that Mr. Shyam Divan in Voices Against 377, said "Homosexuals suffer tremendous psychological harm.  Fear of discrimination leads to a concealment of true identity."

An American-African civil rights activist of the 50's and 60's, once told Parelli that the African-American, rejected openly by society, had his church and his family as a place where he could go and belong, but not so for the homosexual who often experiences rejection by society, his family and the church, and has nowhere to go.

Parelli concluded that "the reign of God on earth" is what Jesus demonstrated in his crossing social boundaries and in his disruption of the "habitual arrangement of things." 

"Jesus' teachings and actions were subversive," said Parelli. "He freed things and people."