It Gets Better — Even for Adventists

While the Seventh-Day Adventist Church officially considers homosexuality a "disorder," some Adventists who disagree with this teaching have created a video for the It Gets Better Project.

Like other videos put out by It Gets Better, this one, available below, assures LGBT teens that they're fine just as they are and that even if they're suffering at the hands of bullies now, they can have happy and successful adult lives. It features Adventists of various ages, genders, and races sharing their stories of coming to terms with being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. "There's a life out there," says one man, while another says, "I was too smart to accept that God would create me just to burn in hell." A woman adds, "It gets better, even for Adventists." The video refers viewers to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention group, and to SDA Kinship, an organization of pro-gay Adventists.

Ryan J. Bell, senior pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Los Angeles, praised the video in an article for The Huffington Post. "Though it doesn't presume to speak for all Adventists or the official church, it does represent a trend toward the love and compassion of Jesus being more fully displayed in Adventist congregations," he wrote.

While activists within the denomination are trying to change its policies, the official Adventist position is not accepting of LGBT people. That position, as spelled out on the denomination's website, is that sexual activity is reserved for marriage between a man and a woman and that "God's Word does not countenance a homosexual lifestyle." The church characterizes homosexuality as "a manifestation of the disorder and brokenness in human inclinations and relations caused by sin coming into the world."