My gay-welcoming church does a world of good for many people. we feed the needy and the homeless, gay and straight couples attend, our organist is gay, our visiting preacher is gay, senior warden is gay. We provide employment to an autistic young man who otherwise might have no job, one of our parishioners adopted two Asian children a brother and sister from Cambodia years ago, we are a liberal leaning congregation that believes in social justice and in the end of poverty.
We fix the home and garden of a senior citizen who can’t do it every year, We take toys for kids and a variety of useful household items to a county facility for poor women raising their young kids (a place that teaches them job training, practical cooking, household and child rearing skills over a 2 year county fund program)
our people get out and clean the local stream, we sell Fair Trade organically grown coffee that gives a decent wage to farmers in Colombia etc who are growing it, we collect toys for poor kids each December, We give to Heifer Internatioal an organization the brings farm animals, good farming practices to villages in poor countries, help toward kids going to school, helps villagers with proudly maintaining their unique arts and crafts, etc.

We regular make bag lunches for an organization that hands them out to hungry people.

The local Episcopal church runs a kitchen to give out hot meals 7 days a week to the homeless and provides job and other counseling and a place for the homeless to bed down at night.

Our local bishop fights for gay rights.

We have a very diverse congregation of people of many backgrounds.

Our church doesn’t interfere in the lives of others, it enriches lives in many ways. We are not ever into politics. We merely exist as a nice place for straight and gay families and thier children to feel at home on Sunday mornings and we are “like a big family”.

God can’t be seen, but God is to be found and represented in the spirit, hearts and minds of those who those who bag the lunches, serve the hot meals, donate their food, clean the stream, volunteer to help a reading program for kids nearby, who bring a carload or two of things for poor women and their kids at the county’s shelter that is just for poor homeless women and their children each with her own apartment and kitchen learning job skills, cooking and child rearing.
God can not be seen, but is in the love and dedication of the people of our church and shows in these various and different ways.

Our church has various ministries and this one that does all of these things memtioned above is the one I serve on with several other very committed people. We discuss all of these programs and our interactions with and contributions to, so I know that these things are a fact. church’s involvement in them.

And the folks of california didn’t ‘vote’ on allowing gay marriage. They voted against it. The supreme court of California found that Vote illegal and unconstitutional and it was repealed. And now we are facing the same damn hate mongers at the pole again this november.

We have commercials running on our tv channels from Equality California Institute with a tag line of:

“How would you feel if you couldn’t marry the one you love?”

I can only hope my fellow californians will do the right thing and NOT vote for hate again…