We Believe?
Community & Religious Responses
Increasing Acceptance
While the LGBTQ+ religious community faced backlash from their fellow religious groups, they also increasingly won battles for acceptance. In response to Mountville, PA residents’ opposition to the MCC buying a building there, Rev. Mary Merriman, the MCC pastor at the time, and Rev. Dean Brubaker, a Church of the Brethren pastor, started “study circles” involving MCC members and those who opposed their move. In the end the community withdrew its objection.