Activist Hopeful About Gay Marriage
A gay Baptist minister arrested after trying to apply for a marriage license in Kentucky says he is optimistic that people opposed to same-sex marriage will change their minds over time, even in conservative places like the Bible belt.
“I’m an optimist, so, yes, I think it’s likely,” the Rev. Maurice Blanchard said Jan. 29 on national television. “I think what it’s going to take is individual hearts being changed, and moods, through relationships with people that are different than them.”
Blanchard, known by his childhood nickname “Bojangles” at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., which ordained him to the minstry and where he leads an outreach program to the city’s gay community, said he and his partner decided to stage a courthouse sit-in Jan. 22 protesting the state’s ban on gay marriage as a matter of spiritual conviction.