In this Wednesday, June 12, 2013 photo, straight and gay members of OneTable, from left, Samantha Curley, Chelsea McInturff, faculty adviser Glen Stassen, Marissa Nunes and Nick Palacios walk on the campus of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. Fuller, the largest multi-denominational seminary in the world, became the first such school to sanction an official student organization – OneTable – for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students earlier this year. Attempts to start unofficial gay student groups at other seminiaries throughout the country have been met with censorship and outright bans. Though the group’s approval is seen by many as progress, some argue it’s a step forward with strings attached.PASADENA, Calif. – Nick Palacios struggled to get his conservative Pentecostal parents to accept him as a gay evangelical Christian for nearly a decade before his family found a common ground through faith.
Now, as an openly gay seminarian, the 29-year-old hopes to carve out a similar acceptance for other gays in the broader evangelical community through his role as president of the nation’s first LGBT student club sanctioned by a major evangelical seminary. The group, called OneTable, formed last fall at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, one of the world’s largest multi-denominational seminaries, and has attracted about three dozen students.
“It quickly became apparent to me that I was going to be OK and that I wasn’t going to have to forsake my faith for my sexuality,” Palacios said of his struggle for acceptance.
“I really hope that people will see Fuller and OneTable as a model of what the body of the church is supposed to do in this situation.”
Fuller’s stance has created ripples in the larger world of Christian colleges and seminaries, where a growing number of gay evangelical students are asserting their dual identities with underground clubs and nascent political activism. Last year, for example, a group called the Biola Queer Underground was quashed by Biola University, a small, conservative Christian school in nearby Orange County.