Gay marriage advocates to reach out to churches Ventura County Star

Ventura County advocates for gay marriage plan to visit churches and synagogues as part of their effort to put the issue back on the California ballot in 2010.

“We don’t want to get into screaming and yelling matches, we just want to tell our stories,” said Lisa Hughes, a member of Equality Ventura County’s faith outreach subcommittee.

Equality Ventura County met Thursday night at the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance offices in Ventura to discuss its next step, now that the California Supreme Court has upheld the voter-approved Proposition 8 prohibiting gay marriage.

EVC is a task force that was organized to defeat Proposition 8. Its mission now is to return the issue of gay marriage to the voters.

Hughes, 49, has a 16-year-old daughter who is gay. She believes her story will touch others in various houses of worship.

Hughes said they are not going to “preach to the choir” by speaking to church groups who already support gay marriage. They also will not be targeting fundamentalist churches.

The subcommittee’s plan is to visit area mainstream churches and host panel discussions on what it’s like to be gay, or to be the relative or parent of a gay individual.

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