Why over a dozen central Kentucky churches support the Lexington Pride Festival
While a small group of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian protesters paraded up and down Oliver Lewis Way demanding attendees “repent of their filthiness,” those protesters were the minority voice of Christians who showed up to the 18th annual Lexington Pride Festival.
At least 13 Christian churches - as well as the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass and the Unitarian Universality Church of Lexington - had tables set up at the flagship festival Saturday to support the city’s pride celebration.
Some churches were even high-level financial sponsors of the event. Christ Church Cathedral and the Unitarian Universalist church were both Green Level sponsors, donating between $2,500 and $4,999 to help put on the Lexington Pride Festival.
While conservative Christians have often used theology to argue against the validity of at the LGBTQ+ identities and same-sex marriage, several ministers and church leaders at the Lexington Pride Festival told the Herald-Leader that God’s love does not discriminate.
“God loves everybody, and we want people to know that God loves everybody, and he made everybody. They’re fearfully and wonderfully created,” Dawn Webb, community engagement coordinator of Grace United Church, said.
“We don’t like the hate that we see, and we want to be the counterpart to that,” she continued. “We want to be that loving place because God is not about hate.”
Several church leaders say the number of churches coming to the Lexington Pride Festival has grown every year. And while attendees are often surprised to see a Christian church tabling at a pride event, it doesn’t go unappreciated.
“It’s been really great to see so many church groups here that are like, “We’re affirming, we’re happy to have you at our churches,’” pride attendee Angel Cobb told the Herald-Leader.
Cobb attends St. Paul Catholic Church in downtown Lexington. The church has a noteworthy LGBTQ+ ministry that even earned praise from the late Pope Francis. The church was a $250 Red Level sponsor of the pride festival.
Cobb’s friend Ollie Fuller said she’s been attending St. Paul recently with Cobb after growing up in a church that was not affirming.
“The first time I went to (St. Paul), I just broke down and cried,” Fuller said. “I had never seen a church that just outright said, ‘We’re praying for queer people, we’re praying for immigrants, we’re praying for those less fortunate,’ and just fully accepted people like me.”
While the Catholic Church as a whole does not condone same-sex marriage or transgender identity, many individual churches like St. Paul openly accept queer identities.
Many mainline protestant dominations, like The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America are fully affirming.
Most Baptist churches are not dictated by formal denominational stances in the same way mainline and Catholic churches are. But many choose to be a part of larger organizations like the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant organization in the United States.
For that reason, the Baptist name confuses many people who see Central Baptist Church at the pride festival every year, church pastor Aaron Austin said.
”Mostly people are like, ‘Are you for real?’” Austin said with a laugh. But he said the question that typically follows breaks his heart.
“The question we get, and that I get as a minister at a Baptist church, is, ‘How far does your welcome go?’”
That’s a fair question, he conceded, given that many churches have been very vocal in condemning different sexualities.
“Our welcome doesn’t stop,” Austin said. “You can come, you can be in leadership, you can be baptized, you can be married, you can be a full part of our congregation. No matter your gender identity, your sexual orientation, that is a part of who you are that we celebrate. And we’re not trying to change that.”
Austin said it’s important for faith communities to speak up right now as political tensions around sexuality continue to rise.
For him, that’s why more churches are coming to Pride and joining groups like the Lexington Affirming Faith Coalition, a group of queer-affirming churches whose pride festival booth allowed attendees to receive a blessing from a church minister.
Mindy Dennis, minister of Central Christian Church, said the rise in churches coming to the Lexington Pride Festival over the last several years results from leaders coming to grips with the fact that “it doesn’t make theological sense to ostracize and outcast an entire group of people based on who they love.”
“People misinterpret a lot of (scripture) for their own benefit, and so I think churches are beginning to understand that,” she said.
Central Christian Church’s booth at the Lexington Pride Festival featured a Lego building activity where participants could fully customize their own figure with pieces from several buckets. They could keep their Lego figure or place it on a board under a photograph of the church captioned “A Place for You.”
“You are choosing who you are piece by piece,” Dennis said of the activity. “It is just a way to say ‘You’re part of this community and you belong here and you’re safe here.’”
This story was originally published May 31, 2026 at 1:40 PM.
