Moments in Metro Detroit LGBTQ+ religious history

• "There have been queer people who have been pushing the envelope [on this issue] for a long, long time, for more than half a century," Retzloff tells Axios.

1970: Bishop Richard Emrich kicked the Detroit Gay Liberation Front out of St. Joseph's Episcopal Church, where the activist organization had been meeting.

• Dialogues with the Episcopal church over the years led it to become "among the more accepting mainline churches," Retzloff says.

1973: Detroit radio station WDET started airing the Gay Radio Collective's show, Gayly Speaking, which included both pro-religion and anti-religion segments, according to Retzloff.

• One of the program's first speakers was Tony Clemente, the first minister for the Metropolitan Community Church of Detroit, a congregation that started out as the Christian Caucus of the Detroit Gay Liberation Front.

Summer 1974: Brian McNaught, a columnist and reporter for the Archdiocese of Detroit's newspaper, the Michigan Catholic, came out as gay and founded the Detroit chapter of an LGBTQ+ Catholic organization called Dignity.

• The paper dropped McNaught's column after he came out in an article in the Detroit News, according to the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network and McNaught's website.
• That led to a civil rights lawsuit, a 17-day water fast by McNaught and his eventual firing from the paper.

1989: Rev. Renee McCoy founded Full Truth Fellowship of Christ Church in Detroit. McCoy is a "hugely important" figure in Metro Detroit history for outreach to Black queer communities, and advocacy against racism and homophobia, Retzloff says.

2003-04: The Ontario Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, leading to many ceremonies across the river from Detroit, per Free Press archives. This perceived nearby threat inspired Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Association of Michigan, to push for a same-sex marriage ban in Michigan.

• Glenn co-wrote Proposal 2, which voters passed by nearly 60% in 2004.

June 2015: After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, local churches were divided, with some celebrating and others preaching against it, according to the Detroit News. A west-side Detroit pastor was quoted as telling his congregation that LGBTQ+ identities are a "sin."

Go deeper: Church acceptance of same-sex marriage still ambiguous