Pastor Janet Mathistad, ELCA (retired), Minot

By now it will be clear from the spate of Letters to the Editor that there is a difference of opinion among clergy members when it comes to issues of importance to the LGBTQ+ community. It is also my experience that on this topic, people don’t change their minds by reading the back-and-forth arguments of either side, no matter how carefully and clearly written, or which Bible verses one side or the other references. Our minds tend not to change until we have had the opportunity to personally know and love someone who identifies in the LGBTQ+ community, until we know the heartache and trauma of growing up in a society that is hostile to their very being. People are not choosing to be “unrepentantly gay;” they are not deciding on a whim that they want to be a different gender than the one assigned at birth. It is a heart-aching process of discovery that one is different, a realization after countless nights or years of anguish and being the brunt of bullying.

With that in mind, my colleagues and I write these letters, not to change the mind of any opponents, but so that individuals and families who are suffering from the anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and legislation in North Dakota can know that they are loved and affirmed. For all the human pronouncements being made, we are not God. God knows the hearts of all of God’s children and yes, Jesus especially reached out and welcomed all those who were told they were unacceptable to the righteous leaders of his day. For Martin Luther, the Bible was not a book of rules, it is the cradle that holds Jesus Christ – who came to be good news for the world.