It Gets Better for Christians: NALT Project Launched

There's a very important new project online. Some of you may have heard of it. For those who haven't, I wanted to draw your attention to it.

I'm talking about the Not All Like That (NALT) Christians project, which launched this week. It's a joint venture of Truth Wins Out and John Shore, and, as the project's "about" page states, its mission is "to give LGBT-affirming Christians a means of proclaiming to the world—and especially to young gay people—their belief and conviction that there is nothing anti-biblical or at all inherently sinful about being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender."

The NALT project is modeled on Dan Savage's It Gets Better project, as Dan explains in the video at the head of this posting, which is also linked to the main page of NALT. NALT has the support of important constituencies among various Christian denominations in the U.S., including Reconciling Ministries Network (UMC), Faith in America, Methodists in New Directions (MIND), GLAD Alliance (Christian Church/Disciples of Christ), Covenant Network (Presbyterian), Auburn Seminary (PCUSA), Many Voices (a coalition of African-American church members), Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, The Evangelical Network, The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion, Believe Out Loud, UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns (United Church of Christ), and DignityUSA. You'll find links to all of these supporting organizations at the NALT site.

Notice anybody missing from the list? Yes, me, too. That new tone that Pope Francis is said to be developing for Catholicism hasn't filtered down yet to the institutions and dioceses of American Catholicism, where our biggest challenge right now is to stop firing gay or gay-affirming people working in Catholic institutions! Let alone welcoming, affirming, and offering pastoral support to gay folks and those who cherish gay folks in their lives . . . . 

For good commentary on the new NALT project, see Wayne Besen at Truth Wins Out, Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush at Huffington Post, Elizabeth Dias at Time, and Fred Clark at Slacktivist (and here). 

P.S. As I post this, the link to John Shore's website appears to be down.