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

3. Bishop Yvette Flunder
Founder and senior pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ, Bishop Yvette Flunder leads worship services described by her congregation as “Bapta-Metho-costal.” In 2003 she was consecrated as presiding bishop of the Fellowship, a multidenominational group of over 100 Christian leaders, primarily African-American. She carries a powerful message of radical inclusion delivered through sermon, song, and activism.

Bishop Flunder serves as a trustee and adjunct professor at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., and she is the author of Where the Edge Gathers: A Theology and Homiletic of Radical Inclusion.

“The family, straight or Same Gender Loving (SGL), is an integral part of the faith community. Defining relationships and family for SGL people is a struggle in itself; however the stability of these relationships is foundational to the stability of the community,” she wrote last June.