Pride flags stolen from a Baptist church with long history of LGBTQ+ ministry
Among the recent victims of Pride flag theft is one of Salt Lake City's oldest churches — one that's part of a denomination not widely associated with LGBTQ+ outreach.
Driving the news: Pride flags were stolen this weekend from outside First Baptist Church, a congregation whose LGBTQ+ ministry dates back decades earlier than many of SLC's other progressive churches.
The intrigue: Baptist churches are widely seen as politically and socially conservative.
That's in part due to the size and power of the denomination's largest sub-group, the conservative Southern Baptist Convention.
Reality check: Baptist churches are exceptionally decentralized among Christian denominations.
"Congregational autonomy was a central tenet of Baptist faith" since its founding in the 1600s, First Baptist's the Rev. Curtis Price told Axios.
That means individual congregations may vary widely in worship style, orthodoxy and political ideology.
Catch up quick: First Baptist has been a Utah standout in LGBTQ+ acceptance at least since the early 1990s, when it hosted the Salt Lake Men's Choir and the first ecumenical World AIDS Day services.
The congregation voted for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the early 2000s when various Baptist alliances and affiliations were splitting over the question.
The church began performing same-sex weddings years before marriages were legally recognized. When a federal judge threw out Utah's ban on same-sex marriage, Price grabbed his rainbow-colored stole and ran to the county building to officiate.
What they're saying:"There were times along the way where the church did have to kind of make some choices. And every time they chose inclusion," Price said.
The latest: Pride flags are stolen from the church grounds almost every year, Curtis said.
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