The Community Miracles Center is a church that is open to all who study A Course In Miracles or who like to associate with those people who do. Apparently some people pick up the A Course In Miracles healing teaching by osmosis. The CMC is located in the Castro district of San Francisco. The Castro is world reknowned for being an open, gay friendly neighborhood. There are many businesses in the Castro that cater to a: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) clientelle. However the fact that the CMC is located there was a matter of rental availability and had nothing to do with a sexual preference orientation of its founders. The CMC was first formed in a different section of San Francisco and only moved to the Castro after they were forced to move because of zoning issues. When looking for a new location they looked all over the city and had no preference for any neighborhood

That being said, being in the Castro has flavored the sermons given at the Community Miracles Center. Since these sermons become articles in the CMC’s publication Miracles Monthly, LGBT issues and sensibilities frequently find their way into the written messages that originate from the CMC. More important to note is that because A Course In Miracles is almost totally non-behavioral in its message, LGBT individuals all over the world, have embraced it because ACIM does not see their behavior as an issue in any way. It certainly doesn’t see their behavior as a “sin” the way traditional Christianity does. Another factor is that in the 1990s, when AIDS was such a huge issue in the gay male community, many in that community sought spiritual healing modalities as part of their way of dealing with this serious medical diagnosis. ACIM study became a part of many gay males’ healing endeavors. People in the LGBT community the world over have heard a welcoming sensibility through the CMC’s many activities and teachings and have thus supported it’s functioning.

At any Community Miracles Center run event, and even at Sunday Service in San Francisco, an observer would see men and women from all communities talking, learning and having fun together. Straight and gay people gather together at all CMC functions and the idea of CMC being a “Gay Church” is always amusing to the local congregation because there are so called “Gay Churches” in the neighborhood and the local congregation sees them as being vastly different from the CMC. For someone in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco a “Gay Church” would be a church which rallied around gay political issues. A “Gay Church” has gay equality as a major political focus and this in not the case with the CMC. The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) is a known “Gay Church” and they have a large congregation and a strong community presence in the Castro neighborhood. All churches, by virtue of their public charity status, are open to all people – the public. Straight people are very welcome at the MCC as well, and many do go there.

Ultimately people will define the CMC in a variety of ways. However, the CMC would never call itself a “Gay Church” and does not see itself that way.

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