The pierced and tattooed Bakker grew up in Charlotte at the heels of his parents’ Praise The Lord ministry and television network. The PTL empire imploded in scandal in the 1980s. Afterward, Tammy Faye, who divorced an imprisoned Jim Bakker and married Roe Messner, re-emerged as a television and cult personality — this time embracing gay men infected with the AIDS virus.

Her son is following in her footsteps — fighting to end religious and political discrimination against gays and lesbians, and presenting a nonjudgmental, inclusive face to his Christian faith.

While the Mormon church still teaches that gay sex is a sin and actively opposes gay marriage—which it will do from pulpits across California this Sunday—a first-ever meeting between Mormon officials and members of an advocacy group for non-straight Mormons, might suggest that such acceptance is more than wishful thinking.