Pastor Leaves Pulpit, Telling Congregation He’s Gay

Brian Ellison isn’t a pastor anymore.

The 39-year-old former minister of Parkville Presbyterian Church delivered sermons and spoke at funerals. He visited the sick and baptized babies. Once he dressed up in a plaid jacket and gaudy tie and pretended to be a game show host for children at vacation Bible school. He had been with the church for 13 years. It was his first church out of seminary.

So he hesitated for a moment in June before he handed over a box of letters at the Riverside post office. In the letters, Ellison told the members of his congregation that he would be leaving them in a month to take a new job.

A paragraph later, he told them that he was gay and had been in a committed relationship for nine years.

“I wanted to be finished with being ambiguous, less than transparent. I wanted to be honest and straightforward as much as possible,” Ellison says.