"For myself personally, I was born a lesbian, I chose to be a Christian. And I don't see a conflict with that, nor does my denomination. Nor do most of the people who come to my church now. It's a process because we are culturally, especially, I believe, here in the greater Southwestern Virginia area and other areas of the country we're culturally taught that gay and Christian are incompatible. But I don't believe scripture teaches that, nor does my life experience teach that. …

"I'm sure they [churches] would be very accepting. Accepting — except many of denominations — whether you're a practicing homosexual or not, they still would have limits on how involved you could be in their faith community. If I were to go to a church and say, 'I'm a lesbian, but I'm not in a committed relationship and I'm not sexually active, but I am a lesbian," there would still be limits on how involved I could be. "

Imam Abdulmubdee Shakir
Masjid al-Qawiyy Mosque
"Homosexuality is really a symptom of an illness in society. The basic reason why we have the illness in society is because of the people, or the people are refusing to be to be obedient to their Lord. So Almighty God, whose proper name is Allah, has created the human being only for one reason. And that is to worship him. Not only did he create the human being to worship him, but he also laid out a way, a format, of how this worship should be done. …

"Homosexuality is really what the prophet Mohammed had mentioned that was going to take place, when the people began to practice their lewdness. Say when the people don't have any shame about practicing their lewdness, that there's going to be corruption in the land. And among the corruption is mentioned [as] disease, which will be hard to cure. And we can see, as we said earlier, that because of the people refuse to obey their Lord, and they conduct themselves in these lewd ways, and these lewd acts, that they are corrupting the society. And as a result of this you are going to see society crumble. …

"I'm not really that familiar with the Bible. But I remember one phrase in the Bible where it say 'Any man that lays with another man should be put to death.' That's in Leviticus. One of those books in the Old Testament. So even in the Book that the people say that they follow, they take out what they don't want to follow, and they try to modify. …

"The Church is being influenced by the democratic process, where the majority of the people go for it, then this is the rule. That's not the way that the religion is. It's not something that you can rule on and make a decision about who the majority is. You have to go to, as we said before, you have to go to the one that laid out the law."

Father Randy Rule
St. Andrew's Catholic Church
"The [Catholic] Church makes a distinction between a homosexual orientation and homosexual sexual activity. And it certainly recognizes that people don't choose to be homosexual, but they do choose to engage in that activity — sexual activity. And that would not be acceptable to the Church. …

"Sexual orientation is not something you choose. It's not a chosen thing. I think what I'm hearing here, though, is that is that there is a prejudice that's a whole another issue, really. About this particular group of people, so that we would, for example, say that some openly gay activity would be so abhorrent while we would not even mention the fact that the same kind of activity happens in the heterosexual side of things. And that doesn't even get mentioned. So, it sort of speaks of an ingrained prejudice that we have to deal with. …

"Well, I'm saying we're very close and are at the point of saying that someone who discovers that they are homosexual is not sinful, because they are. And I think, you know, we've gone a long way as far as trying to figure out this idea of what is logical for us and not — I mean, we go back to St. Thomas Aquinas, in Faith and Reason, that everything that's reasonable to us is not necessarily part of God's plan. We have to combine the two. And sometimes God's ways our beyond that which is normally understandable on our part.…

"Calling anybody to live a celibate lifestyle is not easy. But we have to kind of think of ourselves of what we are in life, and take counsel from those around us who could help us. And certainly be welcomed within the community of the Church to live out our life with the dignity and respect that every single individual who is created by God should certainly have."

Pastor Mike Palmer
Green Ridge Baptist Church
"When Paul was writing to the Church at Corinth, he told the Church, he was — he said, he said, you know, some of you were adulterers, homosexuals, and used several different phrases there in that book. And he said, he said, 'You all know that those kinds of people are not going to inherit the Kingdom of God.' …

"But, he said in the next phrase, 'But such were some of you.' In other words, Christ had changed them, their relationship with Christ had changed them. And they were, their lifestyle was altered by coming in a relationship with Christ personally. And he actually changed them. So that they now followed him, and as a result their lifestyle was different. And that's all we're saying. If you're going to come in to a, to a church and say 'I want to follow Christ,' certainly Christ would make a difference in your lifestyle. After one knows Christ personally, [they're] different. …

"It's important that we be mindful of the fact that the religious community has not brought this issue up. The culture has. All we're doing is simply reacting to what the culture's doing. And they're asking us, 'Well, what about this, this?' And we're just saying what our respective church, groups or authorities, whatever, are saying about the issue. So, we didn't choose the issue. The culture chose the issue. …

"In fact, it's interesting that 25 to 50 years ago as far as what the Bible says about homosexuality, the word that you used 'abomination', 50 years ago there probably been no problem with that word. But today there is. People really kind of cringe at that word. And I would submit to you that's not because the Church or the Bible has changed. That's because the culture has changed. And the culture is trying now to come back to religious writings and reinterpret and rethink and look at it in different ways. What's happened is that the culture is demanding that the Church change. That's like asking Christ to change, like asking God to change. "