Op-ed: 10 Pro-LGBT Religious Women You Should Know

As the new pope is celebrated today, it's worth noting that not everyone who wears the cloth is antigay. This being Women's History Month, here are 10 LGBT and allied women who are looking out for all of us.

BY Joseph Ward

March 19 2013 4:06 AM ET

4. Reverend Dr. Janet Edwards
In 2008 the Reverend Dr. Janet Edwards was tried and unanimously acquitted by a church court for presiding at the wedding of a same-sex couple. “My ministry has been that of reconciliation,” she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I love the kind of conversation that was had in these two days, when Christians were able to talk together about our understandings of the church and how to engage in the world.”

As an openly bisexual minister and board member for More Light Presbyterians, Edwards works to change hearts and minds of Christians who are not yet affirming of LGBT equality.

“As the Supreme Court takes up the question of whether same-sex couples can marry legally, I have been giving considerable thought to how many hearts and minds have changed since Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry in 2004,” she wrote in an op-ed published on Believe Out Loud's website.

“Christians whose hearts have been opened have come to recognize that a marriage between two people of the same gender can embody the covenant of marriage as described in Scripture: I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion (Hosea 2:19).”