The First Congregational Church of Oakland made history Sunday, November 9 when an African American lesbian was installed as its new senior pastor.

The Reverend Lynice Pinkard spoke briefly during the two and a half hour service, and in written remarks decried the passage last week of Proposition 8, which eliminated same-sex marriage in California.

Pinkard, 46, formerly worked at the Ark of Refuge Church in San Francisco; she has been with First Congregational for six years.

"It was horrific," Pinkard said of Prop 8's passage. "Rights have been eradicated."

In a brief interview before the service, which also marked the 149th anniversary of the church, Pinkard said that the LGBT and African American communities must continue to work together.

"It's necessary to coalesce across many, many divides," she said, adding that she would be willing to take a role in that effort. "It's more than identity, it's about where we stand and exploitation."

In her written remarks, Pinkard said that the Yes on 8 campaign "targeted African American communities very successfully in large part because of the effects of a racist society on sexuality and gender roles in those communities."

"Talking about sexuality at all in African American contexts, and especially African American church contexts, is deeply problematic because of the history of the denigration of black bodies in this country through enslavement, rape, and accusations of rape, lynchings, and on and on," she stated. "The emasculation of black men in a racist society – their inability really to protect their families, to provide for their families – has resulted in strict gender roles that often play out as male dominance and female subordination. Anything that seems to interrogate these gender norms – the feminization of men, the masculinization of women – is threatening. In this way, African American homophobia is the effect of racism."

Pinkard said that while the fight for marriage equality will go on, it's important that people "continue to interrogate what marriage means in light of other forms of suffering."

About 100 people attended the installation, a mix of races that various speakers remarked upon.

"What we're celebrating is a willingness ... to be transformed ... by new members seeking refuge from the homophobia of many African American churches and white people who may have allergies to religion," said lay leader Nichola Torbett. "Seven years ago the congregation was considerably less diverse than it is now."

There also were many references to the election last week of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president. Pinkard said that people can take some cues from his successful campaign, where "he used his deep exposure across many lines of difference to connect with the suffering of many different communities."

Pinkard referred to her congregation as an "intercultural" community that must take the things that it learns and do the same thing "in the communities in which we live and work."

"The answer right now, to capitalize on the opportunity this election affords, is not to rush 'out there' somewhere to work, work, work, work, but first and foremost to address the deadness that exists right here in us individually and in our left-leaning communities," she stated.

During her homily, Marjorie Wilkes told the congregation that while they were celebrating Obama's election, they were also celebrating something that has not yet happened, "the eventual defeat of Prop 8 and the day when all of us, no matter who we love, are legal in the eyes of the law."

The church is part of the United Church of Christ, a welcoming and affirming denomination.