This guest post is by Melissa Mead.
I had no idea that as I walked from my vehicle into my church on that April day in 2009, that I would later be asked to resign from my position under suspicion that I was gay.
I had no idea that the staff pastors were having secret meetings for weeks, discussing this suspicion that was based off of the fact that the iconic equality bumper sticker from the Human Rights Campaign was visible on my vehicle.
I had no idea that when one of the staff pastors sat down with me to ask my opinion on what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, he wasn’t looking for my educated exegesis. He was looking for a way to twist my words to provide incriminating evidence for those secret meetings.
I had no idea that the pastor and his wife, who had become family to me over the years, would say that I could keep my job, if only I agreed to go to reparative therapy (which I promptly declined).
As I sat in the pastor’s office that day, I thought about how the pastor and his wife had become another set of parents to me. I had attended the small private school at the church since I was 3, and had known the pastor and his family since I was 12 years old. I was close with their daughter, as we grew up together in youth group and started attending the same Christian college the same year. Every time they came to visit their daughter, they made time to visit with me, too. They watched me develop my skills in Biblical study and homiletics and always… [Read more…] about How a Bumper Sticker Changed Everything