Ready to come out as pro-gay? Welcome to the club.

The Gospel is not actually about the exclusion of LGBT people. For those of us who claim Christianity, the Gospel is the life-giving message that God created us in love, and continued to love us by becoming incarnate, living among us, suffering, and dying for us all. For us, faith is believing that the choice to love lives on, even when it might not make sense, even when life is at its bleakest, even beyond death. The New Testament term for this reckless, upending hope—we learned as children—is resurrection.

There is nothing in there that says, “Keep the gays out” nor is there anything that tells us to give up our hope that those who wish to exclude LGBT people will someday join their fellow Americans in welcoming our families into the fabric of our nation.