How We Celebrated the Stonewall 40th: Our Day At Cornerstone Church

We’re pleased to report that our first Sundays of Solidarity action, in partnership with our friends at Soulforce, was a success!  Yesterday, a delegation of our straight and LGBTQ supporters attended Cornerstone Church in San Antonio — one of the largest single congregations in Texas — and embarked on a series of necessary conversations between our delegation and Cornerstone members.

While the delegation meet with Cornerstone members, Jeff Lutes (Soulforce’s Executive Director) and Jodie Eldridge (Atticus Circle’s Executive Director) met privately with Rev. John Hagee and some of his family members.  The goal of the meeting was to reach a place of new understanding and to help churches, like Cornerstone, to understand the real consequences of their anti-gay rhetoric and how it affects the LGBT community.

Pastor John Hagee agreed to explore the possibility of ongoing conversations with us beyond the one initiated yesterday. Based on reports from our delegation members, we connected with Cornerstone members in the true spirit of Sundays of Solidarity. We looked for common ground while letting them know why LGBT equality is so important to us.

Coverage from the event included this San Antonio Express-News article, looking at both parties’ views on how the conversations went; this WOAI-AM article, which called the meeting “historic,” and this Austin American-Statesman article from Saturday, previewing the meeting.

While we’re anxious to see how today’s meeting between President Obama and LGBT leaders go, and as we continue to monitor legislative and judicial developments around same-sex marriage rights and other fundamental rights, we’re hopeful that the example we set Sunday will help everyone realize the conversations that are possible and necessary around LGBT rights.