Evangelical preacher urges believers to accept gay couples
Tony Campolo, who used to advise Bill Clinton, has come out in support of LGBT inclusion.
The evangelical leader released a statement in which he said meeting with gay couples, and studying scripture, had lead to where he is now:” I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church..
My Campolo, 80, also credited his wife Peggy. He said: “my wife Peggy has been easily the greatest encourager of my relationship with Jesus.
“One reason I am changing my position on this issue is that, through Peggy, I have come to know so many gay Christian couples whose relationships work in much the same way as our own.
“Our friendships with these couples have helped me understand how important it is for the exclusion and disapproval of their unions by the Christian community to end.
“We in the Church should actively support such families.
“Furthermore, we should be doing all we can to reach, comfort and include all those precious children of God who have been wrongly led to believe that they are mistakes or just not good enough for God, simply because they are not straight.
“I am old enough to remember when we in the Church made strong biblical cases for keeping women out of teaching roles in the Church, and when divorced and remarried people often were excluded from fellowship altogether on the basis of scripture.
“Not long before that, some Christians even made biblical cases supporting slavery. Many of those people were sincere believers, but most of us now agree that they were wrong. I am afraid we are making the same kind of mistake again, which is why I am speaking out.”
