James Stoll

Rev. James Lewis Stoll, M.Div. (January 18, 1936 - December 8, 1994) was a Unitarian Universalist minister who became the first ordained minister of any religion in the United States or Canada to come out as gay. He did so at the annual Continental Conference of Student Religious Liberals on September 5, 1969 in La Foret, Colorado.citation |title=Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture |first=Mark |last=Oppenheimer |year=2003 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300100248 |page=30]

He led the effort that convinced the UUA to pass the first-ever gay rights resolution in 1970.He founded the first counseling center for gays and lesbians in San Francisco. In the 1970s he established the first hospice on Maui. He was president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1990's. He died at the age of 58 from complications of heart and lung disease, exacerbated by obesity and a life-long smoking habit.citation |url=http://www.uupetaluma.org/sermons/sermon09jan05.html |title=My Greatly Human Hometown Minister—James Lewis Stoll, 1936-1994 |first=Leland |last=Bond-Upson |date=2005-01-09 |accessdate=2007-09-24]

See also

*Homosexuality and Unitarian Universalism

References

External links

* [http://www.uua.org/actions/bglt/70discrimination.html Discrimination Against Homosexuals and Bisexuals] - 1970 General Resolution of the Unitarian Universalist Association