Meet the lesbian minister whose church clapped back at Texas's ban on rainbow crosswalks

A labor of love in Dallas

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the removal of rainbow crosswalks throughout his state, following the lead of the Trump administration, but the rainbow will still welcome the LGBTQ+ community — and everyone else — to Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas.

Members of the congregation have painted the church’s front steps in rainbow colors in what its pastor, the Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, calls an act of “sacred resistance.”

Church leaders and congregants wanted “to make sure that our neighborhood had a visible, bold statement to say that they are not being erased,” she says. Oak Lawn is a heavily LGBTQ+ enclave, and Griffin-Allison sees her church as a sanctuary for the community in Dallas and all of Texas. Painting started October 21 and ended November 1. The church held a consecration ceremony for the steps November 2.

“This is more than paint on steps,” she tells The Advocate. “it’s been kind of a love letter to our community.” People have driven by the church and shouted “thank you,” although some protesters have shown up too.

A family affair

Those joining in the painting included Griffin-Allison’s wife, filmmaker Cheryl Griffin-Allison. The two married in 2023 outside of Dallas, and they didn’t announce their marriage until the following year, after the denomination removed language from its governing documents banning “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” as clergy members. Rachel, a sixth-generation Methodist minister — the only woman and the only gay one among them — was one of those fighting for the removal.

The women met when Cheryl was making her documentary Shatter the Silence, dealing with sexual violence, rape culture, and the ongoing struggle for gender equality. Rachel came to the film’s premiere in 2019, Cheryl watched online services from Rachel’s church during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the two became friends — and then more.

“God had some plans, so I became a preacher’s wife,” Cheryl says.

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Another joint project

The rainbow steps, she adds, are “signs of hope that people need when the powers that be are looking to erase us. … They are literally rewriting history.”

As the steps are on private property — and are not a crosswalk — they’re not subject to Abbott’s order. For the rainbow crosswalks on public property throughout Dallas, City Manager Kim Tolbert is seeking an exemption from the order.

The steps aren’t the Griffin-Allisons’ only joint project. They are now producing a documentary, with Cheryl as director and editor, titled Kingdom v. Kin-dom, about faith leaders who are reclaiming Christianity as a religion of liberation and inclusivity, in opposition to the hierarchical and exclusionary ways of Christian nationalism.

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Standing for inclusion

It will feature about five congregations, including one that has worked extensively with migrants and one with transgender people. One of the ministers has a trans child. “You can only imagine the struggles that she’s going through,” Cheryl says.

“We’ve all been influenced by hierarchical thought,” says Rachel, who’s been a minister for almost 30 years and at the Oak Lawn church for nine. “If we shift and reimagine and reread what the gospel says through kinship, churches can see how to respond.”

'No Kings'

The women have also been going to the “No Kings” protests and filming them. They’re a “nice complement” to what clergy members are doing, Rachel says.

“We have only a few examples of how pastors navigated through other seasons of crisis,” she notes. So the documentary will be an important resource, she says.

'So proud of my wife'

Cheryl says her inspiration for making the film was “Will congregants of this church know 100 years later what we went through? I just felt it was important to document this time in our country.”

Rachel, Cheryl adds, is the kind of leader the church needs today.

“It takes bravery at this time to stand up from the pulpit,” Cheryl says. “I’m so proud of my wife for doing it.”

The proud couple