The Right Kind of Religion

I do love one of Oprah's spiritual people, Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California. He says, "Being gay is a gift from God. But our culture doesn't understand that. And consequently, the culture sends messages that you ought to isolate. And isolation is the antithesis of what all of us need." To further explain his comment, the Rev. Bacon joins Oprah via satellite. "I meant exactly what I said," he says. "It is so important for every human being to understand that he or she is a gift from God."

On a PBS Religion & Ethics interview.
Q: Tell us why your church decided to go ahead and officiate at same sex weddings in California. A: I think that the central reason is that we believe that God's love is not discriminatory. It's not bigoted. There are no second-class citizens, and so the graces of the church should extend to everyone, regardless of who they are.

Q: One thing you hear over and over again from different segments of the Christian community is God instituted marriage between a man and a woman, and the Bible says this is between a man and a woman. How do you respond to that? A: I think it's very clear that the Bible has an arc that moves towards inclusiveness. Peter himself had a conversion experience about his fixed certainties and the things he felt repugnant toward, and the entire New Testament is about inclusion, about bringing more and more people in and understanding that there's nothing God created which is inherently evil, and so the Bible itself moves towards inclusion.