God Only Knows

When Marti and Donna Rickard walked into the Vineyard Church in the Heights for the first time, they knew this was the church for them. "They did three or four of our very favorite songs, including the one played at our wedding," Donna says. The atmosphere was contemporary, the band was live, the people were friendly, and the sermon was Bible-based. At the conclusion, Marti says, one of the leaders came up and gave them a scriptural reading. That was all they needed to confirm in their minds that God had called them to this church.

It was all exactly what they wanted.

That was in April 2000. Two years later, on April 9, Marti and Donna were kicked out of the church, told they could not receive its Communion or prayers, and would not be welcome to enter its doors.

The church hasn't changed. It still offers contemporary services, live music, friendly people and Bible-based epiphanies.

But then, Marti and Donna haven't changed, either. The out-of-the-closet lesbians have not forsaken their marriage, have not stopped having sex. So the church and its lead pastor, Michael Palandro, told them time was up, that they were engaging in sinful acts without remorse or repentance and would have to go.

In truth, they'd left once before for a period of about six months, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in a church that condemned homosexuals from the pulpit. They'd searched for a new church home, but then decided that they still liked the Vineyard the best and returned.

Like Log Cabin Republicans, Marti and Donna wanted the Vineyard even though the Vineyard didn't want them.

And while Michael Palandro believes God is telling him to stand against the evil of homosexual sex, Marti and Donna Rickard believe God is telling them to stand in testament that one can be a good, Bible-believing Christian and gay all at the same time.

Marti grew up Southern Baptist in Houston before going to college in Louisiana, where she discovered her sexuality. When she moved back to Houston, she began attending the predominantly gay MCCR, the Metropolitan Community Church for the Resurrection (now known as Resurrection MCC).

But Marti didn't feel comfortable there; it was too "high church" for her. She moved to the more charismatic Maranatha Fellowship Metropolitan Community Church, where she became a board member and played drums in the church's worship ministry. It was there she met the church's bookkeeper, Donna.

Donna had grown up Roman Catholic, in a military family who lived all over the place. A single mother with one daughter, she'd been introduced to a charismatic church in New Orleans and liked it. When she moved to Houston, she'd looked for the same type of church.

Eventually they left Maranatha. The church wasn't happy with someone on the board being involved with an employee. Marti and Donna felt that the church, with an average attendance of about 75 people at its services, was too small and inwardly focused. "We felt like God was calling us out of that church," Marti says. They wanted to go out and witness. Not wanting to be segregated from the community at large, they began looking for gay-friendly churches, but not necessarily another gay church.

The majority of churches were not gay-friendly at all, they say, while some, like the Unitarian church, they did not consider Christ-centered. Some friends recommended the Vineyard Church in the Heights because its praise and worship was the type Marti and Donna liked.

They did have some warning of the tensions to come. They were told the church was teaching unification, unconditional love and welcoming everybody and was "geared more toward reconciliation with the gay community but not quite there," Marti says. Still, it seemed worth a look.

After they had attended for about a month, the pastor's wife invited them for coffee with herself and her husband. The four sat together at a Starbucks off FM 1960 for two hours and discussed the church's stance on homosexuality. It did not go well.

"We feel very strongly about what we know, and they feel very strongly about what they know," Donna says. "There's a very thick glass wall in between that. And as much as we can see each other through it, nevertheless, it's a wall that can't be penetrated, and we just kept crashing into it the whole time."

As long as they continued their homosexuality, they could not be members of the Vineyard, could not be church leaders, could not serve in any way except behind the scenes in the food pantry.

Why not walk away? Well, they felt that God had called them there, Marti says. "We just wanted to set the example so that when they did see us, they really saw Christ in us and didn't see what they call a sin."

Nothing too dramatic happened for about a year, then a visiting preacher from Cincinnati gave a positive sermon about the homosexuals in his Vineyard church, Marti says.

As other congregants filed out, the small group of gays and lesbians who sat up front at all the services gathered together. "I told them, 'God's getting ready to move, and we really need to pray, because this is going to be very scary for this church,' " Marti says.