As the newly elected president of the N.C. Council of Churches, Stan Kimer is typical of those who served before him: a retired business executive, longtime churchgoer and member of several nonprofit organization boards. He’s also openly gay. And that sets him apart. Only one other of the country’s 33 similar church councils has elected an openly gay leader. In California, a lesbian was elected president in the late 1990s. That makes Kimer’s presidency of the N.C. Council – a coalition of 17 Christian denominations and eight individual churches that work on social issues – historic in the South. It also signals an acceptance among member denominations – Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics – that even if they have theological differences about homosexuality, they are OK with a gay man at the helm. Or at least, they don’t see it as an issue worth fighting.

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