While growing up in a small town in Kauai, the Rev. Norma Nomura DeSaegher was told, both at church and in her home, that homosexuality was wrong.

DeSaegher recalls that years later, in 1994, when she first entered the Christian ministry through the United Church of Christ, "I still held to those beliefs that gays were weirdos who God could not accept."

Her beliefs began to change shortly after her husband, retired Col. John Allen DeSaegher, urged her to attend a workshop on welcoming gay people into their UCC congregation in Southern California, as he had changed his views about the sinfulness of homosexuality after 20 years of serving in the Army.

"He said, ‘If you are going to be a pastor, you need to minister to all God’s people,’" DeSaegher said, recalling that her initial response, during the mid-1990s, was to balk.

But DeSaegher’s own long journey toward acceptance of homosexuals began the day she sat in the workshop on welcoming gay congregants and listened to pain-filled stories.

Since 2009, DeSaegher has served as senior pastor of Waipahu United Church of Christ. These days, she often preaches about the need for members to "be open to examining it, not to be close-minded" about reconciling a person’s sexual orientation and what the Bible says about homosexuality.

In late October and early this month, while Hawaii’s Legislature debated a marriage equality bill, DeSaegher’s congregation did, too. Echoing the range of the strong emotions expressed during the 11-day special session, which included more than 55 hours of public testimony, the congregation became polarized during the "traumatic and divisive" process of passing the state’s historical marriage equality, she said.

"I saw so much mean-spiritedness going on TV and in the papers," DeSaegher said, noting that it prompted her to write an essay to "share my journey of acceptance in hopes it might ease the difficulty" in sorting through matters tied to the issue of same-sex marriage. "It’s not easy for many folks to acknowledge Senate Bill 1. I felt if Christians could see the love that Christ taught me, albeit a long journey, it might evoke a change of heart for acceptance."

DeSaegher said her acceptance was certainly not as dramatic as the apostle Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus. (The Pharisee was struck with blindness for persecuting Christians until he was convinced by the Holy Spirit to become an apostle of Jesus.)

But within an hour of sitting in that workshop 18 years ago, she wrote in her essay, "The tears began to flow; I felt the judgmental attitude disappearing and felt a warmth of care and compassion instead of hostility" toward the gay men and women of all ages who had shared their personal stories.

"They all shared their stories of how at an early age they knew they were ‘different.’ The older members said they prayed and tried so hard to be ‘straight,’ even to the extent of getting married and having children. But at some point in their 40s they had to stop living this lie and finally came out of the closet," DeSaegher wrote.

In an interview, DeSaegher explained she saw "many inconsistencies" in passages of Leviticus, from which there is the oft-quoted verse (Chapter 18:22) used to condemn homosexuality: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination." Other abominations listed in Leviticus and other books of the Old Testament include eating pork and lobster, or wearing blends of different fabrics, "but nobody condemns them," she said.

"The Hebrew scriptures were written for a small tribe of Hebrews in a given cultural area. I think it’s important to consider that," including the fact that allowing homosexual sex would not contribute to the propagation of their people, high in priority back then, she said.

DeSaegher added that Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another" (John 13:34).

She continued, "Jesus never condemned homosexuals. If you look at all his parables, it’s all about love," including the "Samaritans, who were really hated, and the lepers, who were reviled." Other passages in the Bible also urge slaves to be obedient to their masters or condone the subjugation of women, "yet we know in our hearts that oppression is never good."

In 2005, the General Synod — the main deliberative body of the UCC — passed a resolution affirming equal marriage rights for all couples, regardless of gender. However, the Rev. Charles Buck, head minister of the UCC Hawaii Conference, said local UCC churches are autonomous and have the right to decide on its own policy or interpretation of the Bible. The 130 churches in his denomination represent both progressive and conservative positions on marriage.

Buck said, "It’s fair to say we are a microcosm of Hawaii as a whole" on this issue.

On Nov. 12, the state Senate gave final approval to a marriage equality bill, and Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed it into law the next day. Hawaii is one of 16 states, plus Washington, D.C., to legalize gay marriage. Gay couples could get married in Hawaii as soon as Dec. 2.