A New Site for Good, Old Work in LGBTQIA+ Justice, Equality, and Love

Welcome to a new blog site, A Queer Pilgrim. 

For the last three years, I was the LGBTQIA+ Advocacy Coordinator for the OR-ID United Methodist Church Conference (UMC).  It was work I thoroughly enjoyed because it was fun, challenging, humorous, stressful, and mind-, heart- and body-opening and changing.

That position was totally funded by the Collins Foundation, an Oregon-philanthropic organization. Sadly, they did not fund the position in 2021, because we still had between $20,000 and $25,000 of "unused" funds from 2020, which was money for programs we couldn't carry out because of COVID 19.

Today, I begin a new site for the same work I was already doing in the OR-ID UMC Conference. This time, I am now no longer hired or tethered to the OR-ID UMC Conference, nor to The United Methodist Church. A member of Reconciling Ministry Network and the More Light Presbyterians (LGBTQIA+) group, I am focused on doing LGBTQIA+ advocacy work independently, while informed by primarily Christian theology. As the only out gay Presbyterian pastor in the state of Oregon, it is what I know best, though I've been shaped by many world religions in my work and study and joy of being a pilgrim. 

This new blog site will be "housed" or "under the umbrella" of the School of the Pilgrim (schoolofthepilgrim.org). It is a non-profit that I created after my previous time with another United Methodist institution, Duke Divinity School. School of the Pilgrim is a 501c3, so this is a way that I can both earn a living while doing what I love: advocating with and for LGBTQIA+ people of faith in all circumstances, both here and abroad. 

Why "A Queer Pilgrim?" To begin, I am an out gay cisgender man. And while I honor the LGBTQQIAAP2SD (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, ally, pansexual, two spirit, and demisexual) of my community, it is just easier to say "queer," though I will often or most often use LGBTQIA+ in my writing and speaking. I'm comfortable calling myself "gay" or "queer." 

Why pilgrim? Because I am a pilgrim. In my earliest writings about people with disabilities in the Church, I wrote about people with disabilities being lost in the public square, without the Church reaching out or being hospitable. In 1999, I went on my first actual pilgrimage, and everything changed. This ancient practice became a guiding metaphor of how I understand all of Christian life as we follow Jesus, the Pilgrim God. 

Join me, each week, on this blog as I explore issues facing LGBTQIA+ people of faith in various communities of faith, along with ways that communities of faith that are largely non-LGBTQIA+ can be allies in making this nation and this world a place and people that welcome LGBTQIA+ people. 







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