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The Rev. Wade Griffith, pastor of the 560-member Liberty Crossings United Methodist Church in Birmingham, preached a sermon in 2013 called 'Is Homosexuality a Sin?' He concluded that it wasn't. (Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com)

The Rev. Wade Griffith, pastor of the 560-member Liberty Crossings United Methodist Church in Birmingham, preached a sermon in 2013 called "Is Homosexuality a Sin?"

He concluded that it wasn't.

It was the culmination of a long journey for the minister as he weighed how churches treat their gay members. "I grew up in an ultra-conservative church," Griffith said. "It broke my heart thinking that parents from conservative churches had to reject family members that they loved. They've been told they're sick."

Over the years, Griffith increasingly questioned the church's stance, and re-examined his own views.

"In my pastoral experience, the homosexuals I've ministered with, they would go to any length to be heterosexual," he said. "They've been to re-education camps. Some people call it 'pray out the gay.' One of my parishioners said he was at a camp his parents sent him to. They had him hold up a mirror and say 'I hate you' - hate the gay person so you can be someone else."

After a heart-to-heart talk with his wife about the possible consequences, Griffith's new perspective prompted him to "come out of the theological closet" and address homosexuality from the pulpit in September 2013.

"I decided you need to take a stand and be an influence," Griffith said. "I had to say what's on my heart."

Several families in the church were upset after the sermon, he said.

"I'm not saying a Christian has to see it my way," Griffith said. "I'm just saying this is where I've come to. I've come on a journey and I feel like God's revealed to me to love and accept people the way they are and lead them to Christ."

About 35 other families contacted him and expressed support, saying that they had gay friends or family members.

"I think pastors overestimate the opposition to taking a stand for social justice," Griffith said.

Griffith said that after reflecting on why homosexuals are the way they are, he came to realize it was not a choice.

"They didn't choose to take a harder path," Griffith said. "Few people would choose to be mocked and hated. Sin is based on choice, when we choose to defy God's will. How you're made, that's not a choice. It's like being short or tall. If it's not volitional, it's not a sin."

Pflag, formerly known as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, put Griffith's sermon on its web site. Word spread that Liberty Crossings welcomed gays.

"Everybody I've met in this church is committed to welcoming everyone at the door," Griffith said. "Not everybody agrees with me, but they believe everybody should be welcomed and treated with dignity.

Just to say all people are welcome, all people should be treated with dignity, like Jesus did, that's revolutionary."

Garry Taylor heard about Pastor Wade Griffith's sermon and began attending Liberty Crossings United Methodist Church in January 2014. "Last summer, he accepted Christ and asked to be baptized," Griffith said. "I baptized him. Four weeks later, he fell down dead of an aortic aneurysm." Griffith keeps his picture on his desk. (Courtesy of Liberty Crossings Church)

Garry Taylor heard about the sermon and began attending the church in January 2014. "Last summer, he accepted Christ and asked to be baptized," Griffith said. "I baptized him. Four weeks later, he fell down dead of an aortic aneurysm."

After Taylor, 37, died on Nov. 5, Griffith did the funeral, his first funeral in five years as pastor at Liberty Crossings. Griffith believes a soul may have been saved because of his stance of welcoming homosexuals.

"I keep his picture on my desk," Griffith said. "That reminds me there's more at stake here than doctrinal infighting. That's the first person I've ever baptized and buried, a gay man who found safe harbor at our church because of that sermon. He said, 'I don't want to be seen as gay or straight. I just want people to see me as a human being.' He was just a human being who was looking for God. Had I never preached that sermon, he would have never found us."

Taylor had been outspoken in his faith. "On his Facebook page, he was posting about a church where he found God, where he felt accepted," Griffith said. "He was telling people about God. When he died, it was devastating."

Griffith's stance on homosexuality puts him at odds with his denomination on the issue. The United Methodist Church Book of Discipline holds that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."

He's one of many United Methodist ministers who have staked out a position different from the denomination.

"I didn't get tarred and feathered," Griffith said. "People want to see the good news is good news for everybody."

Breaking the denomination's ban on gay marriage can lead to a church prosecution. Retired Yale Divinity Dean Thomas Ogletree, a Birmingham-Southern College graduate who helped found Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church as pastor from 1952-55, conducted a same-sex wedding for his son in 2012. He was scheduled to face a church trial this year, but it was postponed.

Retired United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert came to Birmingham in 2013 to officiate a same-sex wedding. A formal church complaint was filed against him, but it was dropped this year.

Griffith said his church has continued to grow, even though he was told his stance on gays would scare people away. It's a matter of choosing compassion over formal religious institutionalism, he said. "The more religious we are, the less compassionate we are," Griffith said. "There's room in God for all of us."

The Alabama Marriage Protection Act, an amendment to the state constitution, and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act, passed by Alabama to prevent same-sex marriage, were both ruled unconstitutional on Jan. 23 by U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade in Mobile. She issued a stay on her order so that it is not immediately enforced, pending appeal. The stay will be lifted Feb. 9 if a higher court does not rule on an appeal.

So same-sex marriage could be legal in Alabama as soon as Feb. 9, unless the ruling is reversed on appeal.

"If somebody would have said that three years ago, who would believe it?" Griffith said.

Griffith has not officiated a gay marriage. Would he, if he were asked?

It's not an easy decision, he said.

"That would be a real crisis of conscience," he said. "We're forbidden from doing that as Methodist pastors. Would I be willing to have my ordination revoked? Would I be willing to be kicked out of the ministry to do that? I'm not going to say for sure. It's my livelihood, to feed my family. I'm also just a father and a husband. But I haven't faced that decision yet. I hope I would only do what my conscience dictated, rather than make a decision based on fear. Then I would be doing the same thing people do when they demonize or marginalize homosexuals. My wife and I have talked about it. I'll think that'll happen sometime and I'll have to make a really difficult decision. That may be when God says this is the end of the road for you in ministry. But I want to be a pastor that stands with the least of these, with the lost, with the excluded. I'm not always that guy. But I want to be that guy. Faith is a great replacement for fear."

Joining another denomination is not an option, Griffith said.

"I was born and raised in the Methodist church," he said. "I love the Methodist Church. I can't imagine leaving the Methodist Church. I'd rather put my stake in the ground here and be a voice for those who are excluded."

See also: Can churches be forced to perform gay marriages?