LGBT Activist ME!

From the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel with greetings form our proud senior-citizen neighbors inscribed on the copy in our mailbox:

Local Episcopalian a National LGBT Activist

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Honeoye Falls is the home parish for a nationally involved activist in Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender issues. Neil Houghton, who lives in Mendon, is a Vice President of Integrity USA (integrityusa.org), the national organization that works within the Episcopal Church to advocate for LGBT people.

This summer, Houghton will be a deputy at the church’s national convention in Anaheim, where many of these issues will be addressed.

“This parish has been extremely supportive,” says Houghton. “Many parishioners actively support our cause and participate in local LGBT Pride events. We are a community that 'take the Bible too seriously to take it literally.' When my husband and I were married in Toronto in February 2008, Bishop McKelvey and his wife were our witnesses. They gave us a brick in the Frontier Field 'walk of fame' as a wedding present. Our current bishop, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Prince Signh, spoke on behalf of marriage equality at a lobbying day in Albany in April.”

Regarding being Christian and gay Houghton states, “My sexuality is a morally neutral gift from God. How I use that gift involves moral choices that my faith informs. I face the same choices in my marriage that everyone does. My husband Kyle (Crawford) and I deserve the same rights and should live up to the same responsibilities as all married couples.”

Houghton is also a co-chair of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester Committee for Gay and Lesbian Ministry, New York State United Teachers Committee on Civil and Human Rights and National Education Association Committee on Sexual Orientation and Sexual Identification