A Christian leader in Detroit resigned
Friday from her church after she announced that she is married to a
woman.
According to The
Detroit Free Press, Bishop Allyson D. Nelson Abrams (pictured
above on the left) resigned from her post as Zion Progress Baptist
Church's first female pastor.
In a Sunday sermon nearly two weeks
prior, Abrams, responding to rumors, acknowledged that she married
Diana Williams (pictured on the right) in Iowa in March. Williams is
a bishop emeritus with the Imani Temple African-American Catholic
Congregation in the District of Columbia.
Abrams, 43, told the Free Press
that she stepped down because the issue was dividing the church.
“I know how important it is for
congregations to stay together,” she said. “I didn't want to
split the church any further on this issue.”
She said that her views on love and
sexual orientation “progressed … to the point where I would love
whichever came to me.”
Elder Levon Yuille, pastor of The Bible
Church in Ypsilanti, said that Abrams should stop preaching.
“To be in accordance with Scripture,
she would have to give up that type of homosexual lifestyle,”
Yuille said.
Abrams, a Birmingham, Alabama native
who was ordained in 2001, added that there was “no justification”
for not allowing same-sex couples to marry.
“We have same-gender couples working
in every sector of society and they are not being treated fairly,”
she said.