A Logan Square Lutheran Church highlighted their commitment to same-sex marriage equality this past weekend by collecting signatures on a banner members plan on taking to the March on Springfield Oct. 22.
Members of St. Luke's Lutheran Church of Logan Square, 2649 N. Francisco Ave., used The Boulevard, a summer street festival of which the church is a principle sponsor, as an opportunity to raise awareness for marriage equality, amongst other social justice and equality issues.
St. Luke's staffed a booth to both display and discuss the banner. Many people who stopped by were surprised to learn that many churches do in fact support same-sex marriage equality, according to Rev. Erik Christensen, pastor at St. Luke's.
"They speak with us, and you can see them trying to figure out what our angle is in all this," he said.
But he added that most visitors were excited to sign the banner and take pictures of it. Christensen pointed to an Arabic inscription a young man had left towards the center of the banner. Below it, the man wrote, "Gay and proud of it."
St. Luke's was founded in 2006 with about 12 members. That membership has expanded to about 100 members according to Christensen, who estimated that about 10 percent of the members were LGBT.
The Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America in 2009 voted to let individual church communities decide how they would address issues pertaining to the LGBT community. Christensen, who is gay, said that St. Luke's has always been welcoming.
"About 50 percent of our members are under the age of 40," he added. "To them, marriage equality is a huge issue, for example. They've told me that when they're kids grow up, or when they have kids, they want to make sure that they have a place to go if they are gay."
Among other issues that the church highlighted at The Boulevard were youth empowerment and food insecurity.
