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Hi, my name is Grace and I'm a member of the Church of St. Mary the *** in Times Square,
New York. I grew up in New York, both in the City and upstate, and when I was growing up,
people around me, in my family, didn't really worry too much about gay or straight. To us,
gay people were people.
Ever since I was a child I knew that; I never had to have that explained to me. So, it was
upsetting to me in some ways and difficult for me to reconcile people who felt that gay
people had to be mistreated or hated by practicing Christians. That's just not how I grew up.
And I struggled with some of these issues in my late teens and early twenties, but ultimately
I found that it's really not that complicated.
Gay people are people. And I think the part of scripture and my faith that really makes
expresses this the plainest and easiest is this: when Jesus was asked what the most important
commandment is, he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the
second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these
two commandments."
If you cannot love gay people, if you cannot love the LGBT community and grant them equal
rights in every way, you cannot love your neighbor as yourself. It's really that simple
to me. So I know there are people who disagree, but we're not all like that.