Last night my wife sent me this excellent Mormon Women Project interview with Tina Richerson, and I read it this morning and had to link to it. Richerson has had an amazing life-journey. I empathize with her engagement with Buddhism, although she clearly got deeper into that tradition than I have so far. I am really struck my her statement about her homosexuality and God’s love as well:

I’m a homosexual and I’m a daughter of God. The Lord loves me and there’s a work to be done, brother and sisters. There’s a mighty, mighty work to be done and it’s called building up Zion.

This is a sensitive, personal, and political topic, and I’m amazed at the strength of people like Tina Richerson, Josh Weed, and others who are willing to come forward publicly as openly gay, devout Mormons. I know that it must be a personal cost to them, but I think it does tremendous good to the contentious and often painful discussions about sexuality, morality, and religion. I’ll have more to say about that another time, but for now I’ve already quoted what is by far the most important thing to know: we’re all children of the same God.