A Christian Who Is Trying To Make A Difference

A Michigan pastor is sleeping outside in a tent to protest the United Methodist Church's opposition to LGBT rights.

The Rev. Michael Tupper of Parchment United Methodist Church near Kalamazoo started his protest on November 30. He said that he'll continue sleeping in the tent for 175 consecutive nights.

“It's a symbol of how our denomination, the United Methodist Church, is responding to LGBT persons and pushing them outside the church,” Tupper said. He added that LGBT persons “are being forced out of our church and into the cold.”

He's also taken his protest on the road, pitching his tent in front of United Methodist conference headquarters in Indianapolis and Madison, Wisconsin.

“My ultimate goal is to raise awareness of the problems of discrimination and to inspire people to make a change to allow for LGBT persons to be married in our church and to allow LGBT persons to serve as pastors in our church,” Tupper has said.

The church's official policy states that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”