This year for Pride, many of us are re-emphasizing the core of resistance and protest within the movement, and with good reason. Pride began as a response to state violence against queer and trans communities, led by those who were criminalized simply for existing. For many people of faith, this history can feel uncomfortable. We were not always taught to see protest as sacred. But it is. And it always has been.

Scripture is filled with acts of holy defiance. Prophets confronted kings. Jesus overturned tables. The early church broke unjust laws to practice a love that empire could not contain. Protest is not the opposite of faith. Indeed, it can be one of its clearest expressions. When injustice becomes law or custom, resistance becomes not only moral but essential. It is the way we tell the truth with our bodies, our voices, and our collective presence.

Pride, in its truest form, is a continuation of that sacred tradition. It calls us to show up where it is dangerous, to speak when it is costly, and to act with a love that refuses to conform to silence. For those of us shaped by faith, this is not a contradiction. It is a calling. Protest is not the failure of faith. It is faith that refuses to fail the most vulnerable.