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GAY PRIDE: Festival draws both sides of the pendulum.
*Participants in Atlanta’s annual gay pride festival last weekend had to practically walk a gauntlet of Christians carrying Bibles and signs to enter Piedmont Park.
Their mission: to warn arriving gays of impending eternal doom unless they change their sinful ways.
But for the past two years local churches who affirm gays have mounted a counteroffensive. Their members stand near the conservatives, holding signs saying that God accepts gays just as they are.
"We are letting people know that there is an alternative message," Lisa Costen told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. She attends Trinity United Methodist Church, which affirms gays though the United Methodist denomination has not taken that step.
The battling groups reflect much of what is happening inside American Christianity, as churches grapple with how to treat gay members. Some reject them. Some welcome them with open arms. Others are trying to find a balance. Inside the park, local churches, from a born-again, charismatic gay congregation to mainline churches, such as the Episcopal Church, have taken vendors' booths and invite gays in without demanding they change.
The variety of religious opinions on display within a 200-yard walk was as varied as the crowd's couture. Some dressed as if they had come from work. Others were in full Halloween costume. Costen, holding her welcoming sign outside the 10th Street park gate, seemed to sum it all up. "Not all Christians are the same," she said.
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