New York Times: Some 150 to 200 conservative Baptists from Basking Ridge, N.J., attended a local gay pride celebration as part of an outreach that the pastor, Tim Lucas, called Gay Pride Meets Christian Humility. On a hot seaside afternoon, they wore light blue T-shirts bearing the name of their ministry, Liquid, and gave out free bottles of water.
Many who took part in the celebration and accepted a bottle of water, eyed the group with some suspicion. Churches have attended gay pride marches before, usually to support the marchers or to protest.
But Lucas hoped that Liquid, which is part of a conservative Baptist church that considers homosexuality a sin, could take a third position, avoiding both the scolds of some evangelical Christians and the acceptance of more liberal churches.
Without endorsing homosexuality, he said: "We want to dismantle the invisible hierarchy of sin that many evangelicals promote that puts gays and lesbians at the top of the list. That sense of self-righteousness and superiority runs rampant in our church like a cancer."
