They’re Christian. They’re Gay. Get Used To It. 

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Chris Turner, a 59-year-old Charlotte insurance consultant, said she spent more than two decades trying to accept herself as a lesbian and a Christian. The latter hadn't always been hard to acknowledge, but the former was a struggle.

A Southern Baptist, Turner's family was in church "every time the door opened," she said. By age seven, she had begun having feelings for other girls. But when she looked around the congregation, she saw no one who was like the person she knew herself to be.

"It'll go away," she reasoned. She didn't tell her family or pastor that she was attracted to girls, and she occasionally tried dating guys.

Gradually, she fell away from church. Soon she wasn't attending services at all. Thus began years of wandering.

"I didn't know who I was, so I didn't know what I was looking for," she said.

Not all gay and lesbian Christians, however, have trouble reconciling their faith and their sexuality. Hernandez describes a much less painful route. He noted optimistically his belief that "the more religious the person and the more true they are to their faith, the more tolerant I find that they are."

Hernandez, a 30-something computer consultant in Raleigh, describes himself as a Christian "religious mutt" who prays regularly and reads scripture but doesn't belong to a church.

"A lot of my friends have shied away from religion because they think religion is sort of kicking them out," said Hernandez, who was raised Catholic. "And what I try to tell folks is that it's the other way around ... It's a self-selecting process. If you choose to leave the church, if you choose to abandon your faith, that's your choice."

He says he doesn't feel that "having the stamp of approval of a particular church" is important. "If there's a particular sect that doesn't want to have any homosexuals in their church, I'm fine with that," he said. "I won't attend that church. It's not something I really want to subscribe to."

The Rev. Nancy Ellet Allison, who leads Holy Covenant United Church of Christ in Charlotte, said many of the gays and lesbians who attend her church grew up in religious families but stopped in their 20s when they accepted their sexual orientation. "They think, 'If the church says I can't be gay and Christian... Well, I know I'm gay. Does that mean I can't be Christian?' They just drop out," Allison said.

For Williams, reading his pastor's critique of gay black men like himself crystallized his growing frustration with non-accepting churches. He responded by dropping out.

"I had just had it with the fire-and-brimstone sermons, the condemnation of gays and the condemning-to-hell kind of things. That was the kind of stuff I was tired of hearing from the pulpit," he said.

Williams stayed away from the church until his partner, Kevin Edwards, came home raving about Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church. The two stayed at the downtown Charlotte church, known for its diverse congregation, for several years before they moved over to Holy Covenant United Church of Christ.

He had found a level of tolerance that suited him. Holy Covenant, Williams said, is very accepting — something he wasn't sure he could say about the churches he attended before he found Seigle Avenue. Although no one at his former churches had ever directed hurtful comments at him, he believes that was only for one reason: They didn't know he was gay.

"But I know had they known, it would have been different," he said.

Pew Report

The Rev. Chris Ayers of Wedgewood Baptist Church hears often from gays and lesbians who have struggled with their faith and their sexuality. Pastor of a church that is one of a minority in the denomination (it publicly welcomes gays), Ayers said he's heard from gays from across the United States and Canada.

"They're tortured. They're tortured by the traditional church," said Ayers, whose church a few years ago declared its support for gays and lesbians. "You hear their stories of terrible anguish. They think, 'If they could just find the right woman, the right man, have children, God would change them."

On top of the questions of faith that all believers struggle with, gays and lesbians must grapple with the added burden of history and scriptural interpretations. Most mainline denominations historically condemned homosexual behavior, though theologians offer different interpretations of what the Bible really says about sexuality.

Religious fundamentalists and conservatives read verses, among them 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Leviticus 18:22, as unequivocal prohibitions against sexual acts between members of the same sex. While many of these people merely say they hate the sin but love the sinner, others have plainly and publicly condemned gays. Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, for instance, who aligned himself with religious conservatives, described the nascent AIDS crisis as "nature's revenge," according to published accounts. The Rev. Fred Phelps, a fringe protestor, has made the slogan "God hates fags" his way of life.