HOUSTON – In the church where pastors deliver a message to thousands every Sunday, about a dozen transgender, gay, and lesbian Houstonians and their supporters hoped to deliver a message of their own.
"We're everywhere," said Melissa Murry, a transgender activist. "We're your neighbors, we're your co-workers, we're your family."
Wearing purple for the first Sunday of Advent, the group was quiet and respectful during Sunday morning's "11-11" service at Second Baptist Church in west Houston.
"Really we just came here to worship and show people I'm a neighbor," said Murry. "I live down the street, that I'm one of their neighbors, I'm transgender, and I'm not a child predator, and that there's really nothing to be ashamed of and fearful of."
Ed Young, the pastor of Second Baptist, had vigorously spoke out against the now repealed Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) from the pulpit and on his televised broadcasts. He called it a moral issue, not a political one.
"If I think men oughta go to men's rooms and women oughta go to women's restrooms and the showers facilities, I think we're being discriminated against when somebody can decide regardless of their chromosomes whether they're male or female," Young said during a Nov. 11 interview with KHOU.
The sweeping measure would have offered 15 groups—including gay, lesbian and transgendered people—protection from discrimination some say they've already faced.
"I've lost four or five jobs because they couldn't figure out which bathroom to put me in," said Michelle-Paulette Backes, a transgender woman who attended Sunday's service.
Opponents had dubbed HERO "the bathroom ordinance," arguing it would allow rapists to dress as woman so they could sneak into women's restrooms.
However, longtime gay activist Ray Hill hopes that by giving churchgoers the chance to meet him and his friends, "they would be less vociferous and less apt to tell the bathroom hoax lie."
A church spokesman turned down KHOU's request for an on-camera interview and would not allow filming during the service, but said the church is "delighted to have anyone who wants to worship with us."
That sentiment was shared by churchgoers we spoke with.
"Everyone is welcome," said Lynn Carpenter, a member of Second Baptist.
"(Church staff members) went out of their way, several of them, to greet me and welcome me here and greet all of the folks here," said Hill.
Now Hill and others hope not only to be embraced by the community, but one day the law.
