General Discussion

and went to Catholic school grades 1-5. At that time, Father Hesburgh was on President Kennedy's Civil Rights Commission and a lot of Catholic clergy and lay people were on board and pretty liberal. But as stated in an earlier comment, liberal priests and bishops were replaced by conservative ones.

I started having issues with the church's position on birth control and women's rights and was in and out of the church several times. The child sexual abuse scandal and the response of hunting down gay seminarians was the last straw.

Some of my friends invited me to come to church with them at our local United Methodist Church and it clicked with me. The services feel very familiar and comfortable. I love the emphasis on service and leaving the world a better place than you found it. The Pacific Northwest conference is quite liberal. The issue of gay rights within the church is sad because of so many disagreements and leading to a split within the church but unlike the Catholic church, at least they are dealing with the issue.