West Hollywood Parish Leaves Presbyterian Church Over Gay Rights

Well before the national gay-rights movement sprang from the Stonewall riots, West Hollywood Presbyterian Church started Los Angeles’ first gay men’s rap group. The year was 1965.

The congregation launched the Lazarus Project in 1977, sending gay men and lesbians into Presbyterian churches across the country to share their stories of faith and family at a time when the denomination was poised to declare that “homosexuality was not God’s wish.”