Christmas caroling on Castro Street

On Saturday, members of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist took over the corner of 18th Street and Castro, San Francisco's gay downtown, to invite folks to join us in Christmas worship services and festivities. We had a lot of fun.


In general folks were friendly. I've done inviting at this location for Easter services and folks aren't always so glad to see us. After all, gay and straight, they tend to be folks who figure Christians hate them. But apparently most folks like Christmas, so this time of year they are more forgiving.


This passerby was a Wiccan, generally a broadminded lot. I always meet leftist friends here. This time I had one come by who said he'd join up if we could find him a husband -- but he wasn't impressed by the cast we'd assembled. He doesn’t know who he's missing ...


Parish musician Charles Rus led his motley choir in carols.


I didn't think we sounded half bad, but I'm no judge of music.


Any reader interested in meeting some of these carolers in person, check out the St. John the Evangelist calendar.
***For whatever it is worth to the readers of this blog, I should report that I've recently taken a job as national field organizer for Claiming the Blessing. This outfit is a coalition that includes many groups (the one with the most members and national infrastructure is Integrity) that work for full inclusion and equality for LGBT people in the Episcopal Church. I'm tired of letting people define Christianity who are more concerned with what some of us do with our plumbing than with who our nation and economic system starves and who we choose to kill. There's no Good News to share if all we have to offer is a dose of damnation. God promises justice for the oppressed and joy for all -- we can do better than we have been doing.

For a gay, secular take on the struggle within the Episcopal Church, see Teresa Morrison in the Advocate.