REV – Yes, I am both an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and, those are my initials. Rev. REV, that’s me.

For the longest time I’ve wanted to begin a blog. All these ideas floated through my head on what I’d like to do and say. Then, you sit down with your laptop, you open up a new, blank document … and nothing. Isn’t that just the way things go for those of us that are introverts? 

“Oh, I can’t write that! No one will be interested in what I have to say. Or, I’ll piss them off and then have to deal with all the angry reactions – the nasty emails and the internet trolls just looking for a chance to stir up trouble.” That may be. 

But there might also be someone whose heart can be made lighter, or, someone else that has been wrestling as I did (and do) and needs to find a kindred spirit, or, who knows what chord you strike. If you don’t write it, if you don’t speak up and say something, if you never sit down and try to find that chord that keeps running through your mind and heart, you will never know.

So here goes.

My name is Ron. I am a married, gay pastor in the United Church of Christ. My husband and I have been together for seventeen years. We celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary August 2020. We married one month after the State of New York authorized legal same-sex marriage. As residents of New Jersey, that marriage wouldn’t have been recognized, so, on the same day, we began with a formal Civil Union ceremony at our home church in New Jersey, and then caravanned to New York with friends and (willing) family for our wedding ceremony. We thought we were cute and called it our ‘progressive’ wedding day. 

It was a wonderful day. Our closest friends, my husband’s daughter and family, and my daughter, my twin nieces, and their oldest brother. Seminary classmates joined us, our closest pastors officiated, and everyone that gathered, blessed us and shared in the simple but great joy that we could finally say, “I do” to each other. A small, intimate reception followed that capped the day. I can’t help but smile when I look back on our wedding.

You hear the “but” coming, don’t you?

Yeah, most of my family refused to join us. My mom, my two sisters, my two adult sons were absent. My family has never accepted that I am gay. Or that I can be gay and Christian. Or that I can be gay, Christian and called to be a pastor. Or that I can be gay, Christian, a pastor, and married to another man. It hasn’t gotten better. It has been twenty-six years since my ex-wife and I separated and I came out. And it remains the source of much tension and family trouble.

I am grateful to be married to one of the world’s most patient, supportive and loving men. I could not be where I am without his love and support. This blog will be about the journey, and the struggles, of reconciling faith and sexuality, finding faith and love, and creating affirming community where you are. It’s not always easy, it can be downright painful at times, but to feel whole inside and at one with our Creator? That’s the whole point!



Ron