Image by Google Maps

(JTA) — A woman from Texas was asked to stop volunteering at a local church food pantry after it was discovered that she was both Jewish and lesbian.

Carmen Hix wrote in a post on Facebook on Sept. 8 that she took a week off of work and donated over $500 worth of food to the food pantry at the Calvary Church in Friendswood, Texas, near Houston which needed extra help in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

She said that she was called in to talk to the church’s pastor, Ron Hindt, who told her she was no longer welcome at the church after he found out about both her religion and sexuality.

“I told Pastor Ron that when they called me to volunteer, they didn’t bother to ask me to check or not check those boxes…Jewish and Lesbian. Told him…’When you needed me, it didn’t matter. Now that you’re dwindling down the operation, it seems to matter.’ He gave me the tired ‘blah, blah, blah’ that Pastors have a tendency to do. ‘We can’t let you represent our church, as being a Lesbian is a sin…’ I let him know he should be ashamed to call himself a Christian,” she wrote on Facebook.

Hix said in her post that she has been in a relationship with the same woman for the last 20 years.

In a post the next day, the church called the incident a “miscommunication” and said that the pastor met with Hix, who the post did not name, and “apologized for the misunderstanding.”

“I invited her and her partner to sit with my wife and I in church this Sunday,” the post said.

Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief

You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.

And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.

That’s where you come in. Gifts of any size keep the Forward free and accessible to everyone and ensure we have the resources we need to power the Forward at this critical time for American Jews.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Will you support our work today?

, editor-in-chief

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT