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North Sulawesi church hosts discussion on LGBT support
"Please accept us, as we are looking for God just like you."
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Illustration of bible study (Shutterstock.com/BRAIN2HANDS)
T
iara sat quietly on a pew at a church in Manado, North Sulawesi. As a transgender woman, she was worried that she and her friends, fellow members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, would get sneered at by other churchgoers.
The 20-year-old was attending a book discussion on LGBT issues at the Minahasa Injili Masehi Church (GMIM) Sion Winangun. The book, titled Menafsir LGBT dengan Alkitab (Interpreting LGBT through the Bible), was written by Emanuel Gerrit Singgih.
However, her concerns were quickly forgotten, as she said the participants welcomed her and the other participants from the community.
She expressed delight that she could attend the discussion and visit the church to fulfill her religious duties, which she said were to create a fellowship, to testify and to serve.
“We, members of the LGBT community, long to perform these tasks. Please accept us, as we are looking for God just like you,” said Tiara, who works for the North Sulawesi Indonesian Family Planning Center (PKBI).
Emanuel, a priest at the Western Indonesian Protestant Church (GPIB), said he raised the issue following a string of cases of discrimination against LGBT people in the country in recent years.
He quoted a GPI pastoral statement calling for Indonesian Christians to end the stigma against members of the LGBT community that saw them as sinners and mentally ill.
