Former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor Alicia Johnstone has posted a video to Facebook describing how she has come out as bisexual and resigned from her role within the church.
“I have come to a point of complete disagreement with the Adventist church on their teachings about LGBT people and I don’t know how to minister anymore without being honest about that.
"I am myself bisexual,” she says in the video.
Johnstone—who is based in Arizona—says her upbringing as an Adventist made it very difficult for her to come to terms with her sexual orientation.
“I knew that shame of feeling inconvenient and like you weren’t a part and I couldn’t ignore the fact that our church is causing that to people,” says Johnstone.
“Being bisexual for me is actually really simple. All it means is that I am attracted to both men and women.
“For me, as a Christian person, that means that I believe I could be happily married to somebody from either gender.
“It’s about love, it’s not about genitalia,” she adds.
Johnstone hopes that by speaking out about her own experience, she can provide support to people in similar circumstances.
“I want people to know that they’re not alone. Just because their circle pretends like it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
“The institution seems to be doing everything it can to keep that silence from being broken, but that silence is literally killing people.”
You can watch Johnstone’s video below:
