Here are just a handful of quotes from the email we have received -- both from heterosexuals, as well as lesbian and gay people.
- My partner has been weeping, off and on, all day.
- Your courage is an inspiration and your pain is shared by many.
- It is good to hear that you will remain on the staff at Germantown UMC.
- You are brave, you are courageous, you are loved and you are important for the leadership that we need in our wounded nation.
- I will continue to pray for Rev. Stroud, her congregation and the whole UMC. And next weekend will be spent making casseroles.
- You are brave ones on the edge of a new awakening. It is painful to be at this birthing, but you are not alone.
- My wife and I are planning on watching the PBS special in a few weeks then we will talk with our whole church about the situation.
- I have an appointment tomorrow with my UMC pastor to discuss my concerns about staying in the UMC.
- I admire Rev. Stroud for remaining loyal to the UMC despite what has happened. I don't know if my faith will be that strong.
- I believe that Jesus would be about love and not the letter of the law. Someday we shall be free.
- It is times like these when I am ashamed to be an United Methodist.
- I have recently moved here to San Francisco, CA because both my family and the general public persecuted me for who I was. I moved for my safety. My cousin (who also was gay) was murdered in Richmond due to a hate crime against him and his roommates.
- Thank you for what you have done and are doing.
- Thank you for your faithful response to God's call. May God bless and keep you in the days ahead.
- My gay stepbrother tried to kill himself as a teenager so I can fully imagine how important your coming out has been to the youth in your ministry.
- I find it more and more difficult to remain in a church that excludes my neighbors and friends. What a sad day for our denomination!
- I also share my own sense of guilt in not having been able to make more inroads in my own Conference regarding our denomination's archaic stance on ordaining homosexuals. I ask your forgiveness.
- Even though the church ruling looks like a defeat, you are part of a spiritual work of emancipation and healing.
- As a gay man, I long ago realized that I was not welcome in mainstream Christianity. I subsequently became a Buddhist out of my sincere need for both spiritual practice and an accepting community of faith.
- I am sad today as a retired United Methodist pastor of the action taken. But God is Good and so are both of you as special persons to each other, our world, your community and the church.
- I read your coming out sermon and wept through it.
- I am going through one of the toughest times in my life right now... The text I read of Romans 8:38-39 literally made me weep in remembrance of a God I knew as a child who would never forsake me. Strange that after almost ten years of nonexistent communication with God a lesbian Methodist would reopen the channels for me, a country-dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal!
- I am very sad and very afraid.
- You have my prayers and my tears.
- I came out to a good friend of mine in June. My family has been very understanding and supportive of me. [I want to bring my girlfriend to church with me on Christmas Eve,] but I'm scared. I'm so scared of not being accepted, I almost don’t want to go [to church].
- When we had our "Joys and Concerns" part of the service I spoke up and talked about the trial. My minister had to step in because I started to cry when talking about you.
- I told my minister how my instinct is to anger and to never come to church again -- but that I am taking my cue from you and trying understanding and openness. Because you wore it so well
- I lit a candle for you, your struggle, and your courage today.
- We had a large group discussion this morning at [our church] about you and the trial. The most wonderful thing happened. There was discussion of how to make our church more welcoming to all.
- In all of this, I find it hard not to be angry. If I didn't believe that Christ were larger than his church, I would perhaps find fault with Christianity.
- My wife and I today requested to be removed from the Methodist Church's list of membership.
- I have resigned my membership and support for the UMC.
- I read the verdict on Monday and had a difficult time getting through the day.
- I have already given up on organized religion. I find it to be more about power and politics than about God.
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