Glenda Russell

A couple months ago I flew to Detroit to interview a current Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church who is an ally, and we had a wonderful conversation. He clearly is an ally in every sense of the word, and he uses his reading of scripture to come to that conclusion. He says, ‘The church teaches me that one always has to come back to conscience. My reading of scripture and my reading of the principle of the church and the faith, lead me to conclude that I have to be an ally.’”

On Coy Mathis, the 6-year-old child born as a boy who identifies as a girl and was denied access to the girls’ bathroom at her Fountain, Colo. school: “Change is never smooth. We pretend it is, but it isn’t. And that’s what’s happening in this case. They’re gonna figure out that bathrooms have played a central role in every civil rights movement in this country.”

On same-sex civil unions: “At one level I want to say it should have happened yesterday.

At another level, when I look at the struggles of other groups in the United States and I look at the gains that have been made by the LGBT community, I’m amazed by the rapidity with which those gains have happened. 

For LGBT people, we are in people’s families. We are everywhere. Once people started coming out, people realized that the social distance was not that great. In fact, it may be a son, it may be a daughter, a neighbor next door.

On same-sex marriage:

“Access to marriage is one right, and as long as LGBT people don’t have that right, they by definition don’t have equal rights.”