This
summer,
while
many
families
with
kids
were
recovering
from
the
end
of
the
semester
and
gearing
up
for
camp
or
vacation,
my
partner
and
I,
along
with
our
intrepid
five-year-old
son,
were
setting
off
for
uncharted
social
territory.
Our
family
was
one
of
50
gay
or
gay-friendly
families
who
visited
America’s
biggest
evangelical
churches
as
part
of
a
project
called
the
American
Family
Outing.
Our
plan
was
simple.
Mega-churches
and
their
leaders
wield
broad
cultural
and
political
influence,
so
why
not
invite
their
families
to
get
to
know
lesbian,
gay,
bisexual
and
transgender
families
over
a
potluck
supper
or
a
picnic?
Back
in
December
2007,
Soulforce
wrote
letters
to
six
mega-church
leaders
and
asked
them
to
match
families
from
their
congregation
with
LGBT
families
for
a
meal
and
conversation.
Then,
between
Mother’s
Day
and
Father’s
Day
2008,
we
set
off
with
hopes
of
attending
worship
services
and
sharing
some
potato
salad
and
watermelon
with
families
who
had,
all
too
often,
been
cast
as
our
polar
opposites.
If
there
was
a
way
to
navigate
around
the
divisiveness
of
the
culture
wars,
our
little
group
of
families
was
determined
to
find
it.
But
what
first
seemed
simple
was
a
little
more
complicated
when
the
rubber
hit
the
road.
After
six
months
of
letters
and
phone
calls,
we
arrived
at
our
first
stop,
Joel
Osteen’s
Lakewood
Church
in
Houston,
without
having
heard
a
word
from
the
church.
But
we
persisted,
and
eventually
Rev.
Osteen
did
agree
to
a
meeting
—
not
with
LGBT
families,
but
with
our
straight
clergy
ally,
Rev.
Jay
Bakker.
Thus
we
learned
one
of
the
first
lessons
of
the
American
Family
Outing:
families
meeting
other
families
across
the
gay/evangelical
divide
is
still
a
radical
idea.
ALTHOUGH
THE
REST
OF
THE
churches
did
agree
to
meet
with
us,
and
many
met
us
with
grace
and
warmth,
none
invited
rank
and
file
church
families
to
the
meetings.
For
the
most
part,
we
met
with
pastors,
senior
staff,
and
their
spouses.
I
guess
mega-church
leaders
intuit
something
that
most
LGBT
people
already
know:
when
people
meet
us
and
our
families,
when
they
hear
our
stories
and
see
our
love
for
each
other,
they
find
it
much
harder
to
silently
support
discrimination
in
the
pews
or
at
the
ballot
box.
In
fact,
opinion
research
suggests
that
having
a
gay
friend
actually
trumps
religiosity
when
it
comes
to
people’s
attitudes
about
gay
rights.
The
churches’
hesitance
to
let
our
families
mingle
with
their
families
brings
us
to
the
second
major
lesson
of
the
American
Family
Outing:
we
are
already
one
family.
In
every
city
we
visited,
we
met
LGBT
people
whose
mothers,
fathers,
aunts,
uncles
—
even
their
sons
and
daughters
—
attended
the
non-affirming
mega-church
we
planned
to
visit.
This
was
most
tangibly
borne
out
in
Atlanta,
when
we
visited
Bishop
Eddie
Long’s
New
Birth
Missionary
Baptist
Church.
Our
clergy
leader
for
the
visit
was
a
young
minister
named
Troy
Sanders.
Unbeknownst
to
Troy,
his
godmother
had
been
tapped
to
participate
in
the
meeting
from
the
church
side.
The
two
had
been
estranged
since
Troy
came
out
as
gay,
and
they
hadn’t
spoken
in
a
couple
of
years.
At
the
end
of
the
official
meeting,
Troy’s
godmother
—
a
small
woman
in
a
pink
Sunday
dress
—
asked
everyone
to
wait
so
that
she
could
publicly
apologize
for
losing
touch
with
the
godson
she
still
loves
very
much.
THAT
MOMENT
IN
ATLANTA
ALSO
illustrates
the
the
third
major
lesson
of
the
American
Family
Outing:
don’t
listen
to
the
received
wisdom.
I
can’t
tell
you
how
many
people
told
us
not
to
bother
to
visit
New
Birth,
because
Bishop
Long,
who
led
a
2004
march
in
support
of
a
state
constitutional
ban
on
marriage
equality,
was
too
virulently
homophobic.
And
yet,
in
spite
of
Long’s
track
record,
New
Birth
turned
out
to
be
one
of
the
best
stops
on
our
journey.
Bishop
Long
was
captivated
by
the
question
of
how
to
heal
the
rift
with
the
Georgia
LGBT
community,
and
he
described
himself
as
open
to
new
understandings
about
gay
men
and
lesbians.
This
leads
me
to
the
last
major
lesson
of
the
Outing:
new
understandings
of
sexual
orientation
are
afoot
in
the
mega-churches.
Several
of
our
discussions
revealed
diminishing
support
for
ex-gay
programs.
One
pastor
called
the
research
that
props
up
reparative
therapy
“frankly
embarrassing.”
While
most
of
the
churches
still
insist
that
gays
and
lesbians
must
remain
celibate
in
order
to
serve
or
become
members,
there
is
an
emerging
acknowledgment
that
sexual
orientation
is
complex
in
its
origins
and
that
attempts
to
change
it
can
...
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