Believe Out Loud: Wholeness is what I experienced when I found the way to accurately understand my whole self as well as to describe myself to the world. My years of confusion and questioning about my sexual orientation were very much a Lenten journey through the land of my soul. Realizing who I am—a bisexual—was as freeing and life giving as Easter.Continue Reading

Believe Out Loud: For those who have been confused, I have regularly shared the story of discovering who I am and sharing that news with my husband in 1998 – after 17 years of marriage. Alvise knew how important our wedding vows were to me. He articulated better than I could what my being bisexual meant to him (and also to me). He put it this way: “What you are saying is you love me out of all possible people on the face of this earth, not just half. Actually, that makes me feel very special.” Continue Reading

Huffington Post: For the first time since I was a teenager, I did not attend my own church for three Sundays in a row (for a reason other than sickness or travel). Over these last few weeks and months, I have been actively volunteering for the campaign to reelect President Obama here in Pennsylvania. As a Presbyterian minister, and someone who reads and reflects on the Bible daily, purposefully missing church like this was a big deal for me. And yet, what I found working in the "ground game" -- as the campaign folks call it -- surprised me. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: Since July, I have been volunteering in "the ground game" of the campaign to reelect President Barack Obama. I have been phoning and canvassing, but I especially love the canvassing because I never know what conversation will unfold when someone is home and agrees to talk with me. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: I see only one possibility for our society to move past and heal from our increasingly dangerous impasse: to have real conversations with one another. I don’t mean scripted, talking-point-filled debates that turn into a wrestling match, but rather conversations where we get to know more about each other and the paths that brought us to our respective views. That’s why I want to extend an invitation to Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s Chief Operating Officer, whose comments around same-sex marriage began this present controversy: Dan, let’s have lunch. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: About 12 years ago, I experienced an awakening -- I realized that the confusing feelings I had had all my adult life came from being bisexual. Through the process of coming out as bi to myself, my loved ones -- husband, teenage sons, brothers, father -- and friends and colleagues in the church, a number of questions have risen to the surface as those most frequently asked. I thought it would be helpful to others to share those questions and my answers here. Continue Reading

Believe Out Loud: Christmas is a time for treasured traditions, looking back on the good news and the challenges of the past year, and forward with hope toward the year to come. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: That justice is of the very essence of God is the clear, consistent message of Scripture. And yet it seems that when the church has acted as the Body of Christ in the world -- the arms and legs of God -- it has often been muddy and ambivalent about what justice is and how we go about it. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: In my 30 years as an advocate for God’s love for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, I’ve had countless conversations with those who think differently from me about God, Scripture and the place of LGBT faithful in the church. Today, I share with you the five questions I most commonly hear, as well as my answers to them. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: God in the Bible takes a deep, abiding interest in economics: the distribution of wealth and power among God’s people. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: When does a human stop being a human? That’s the heaviest question that came to me as I reflected on Texas Governor Rick Perry’s contradictory convictions. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: This past weekend, Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio celebrated twenty years of being a More Light Church -- a congregation where "everyone is invited into full membership and ministry regardless of sexual orientation." Mt. Auburn boldly proclaims that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are part of God's good creation. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: I’ve studied prayer for many years and as I see it, there are at least two kinds of praying. One that we may as well call magical thinking and one that can give us what we need most in a dangerous moment. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: I’ve studied prayer for many years and as I see it, there are at least two kinds of praying. One that we may as well call magical thinking and one that can give us what we need most in a dangerous moment. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: One of the most deeply held aspirations of the American people is to be the shining city upon the hill, an example of the best that human beings can be in the world. And for many this aspiration stems from an understanding of Scripture and more specifically Jesus' words -- what many of us learned as children in Sunday school. Continue Reading

The Advocate:I have served as an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 34 years and advocated for the welcome and full inclusion of LGBT people for even longer. Yet it wasn’t until midlife that I realized I wasn’t just an advocate for LGBT people, I was one of them. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: Shunning is not a word we hear or use too often in everyday life. Shunning is, however, prevalent as a practice within the church to our great shame and loss. The most recent example came before us on Sunday, when the Catholic bishop of Brooklyn ordered his priests to shun politicians for their passage of gay marriage in New York state. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: What a marvelous thing that any day now, the New York legislature is likely to legalize marriage between two men or two women! Exactly six years ago Saturday, June 25, I had the great honor to preside at the wedding of two women, Nancy and Brenda. For me the only way to describe it is that I experienced Pentecost — the Holy Spirit palpably fell upon us that day. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: It may be that God calls Michele Bachmann to run for president, but, in the end, not to serve. God’s will shall be known through the vote of the people, just as it is in my church. Continue Reading

Washington Post On Faith: Since November of last year, Presbyterian ministers and elders have been listening, discussing and praying over an amendment to our church constitution. One by one, faithful Presbyterians, including me, have gathered to vote in presbyteries across the country on whether to allow our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters in Christ to be ordained as Ministers of Word and Sacrament. Continue Reading

Huffington Post: I see this vote as one indication of a moral awakening in America. I say moral awakening because many people of faith across the country and world are opening their eyes to the many wonderful gifts and the faithful service that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender believers bring to our many religions. Continue reading

Washington Post On Faith: Personal religious views cannot and should not prevent a woman from having access to a legal, medical procedure. I trust that left, right, center, religious and secular all agree upon this fundamental principle of our constitution. Continue reading

Huffington Post: Progressives of faith need not flee from the Bible in order to stand up for the beauty, truth and goodness of love. God is giving us this job to do. We sin when we shirk it. Continue reading

Washington Post On Faith: This may be the moment the USA steps fully into the 21st century, shedding the polarities of the Cold War and its child, the War on Terror. Continue reading