Nashville woman apologizes to LGBT community on Facebook

Erika Chambers showed up at Saturday's Nashville Pride Equality Walk with a message on a poster that read: "Please Forgive Me. I'm a Christian who has not shown you love. And that's not OK."

A video the Nashville woman posted on Facebook about her experience had been viewed more than 25,000 times and shared by more than 500 people by Sunday afternoon. The Equality Walk was part of this year's Nashville Pride Festival, which came on the heels of Friday's landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned states' bans on same-sex marriage.

Story continues after video:

"I was so heartbroken about how Christians responded to the ruling in fear and with a lot of hatred that I felt I had to actually show up to show love in person," said Chambers, a freelance photographer.

Chambers said she's been overwhelmed by the comments and messages in response to the video.

"People from all over said that the video brought them to tears because the people watching the video had not seen love from Christians and they were amazed that a Christian would do something like this," she said.

In response to her Facebook post, one church in New York said her example validated its own plans to participate in a local Pride parade with similar banners asking for forgiveness. A lot of commenters said they had been hurt by Christians and that having someone ask for forgiveness meant a lot to them.

In the video, Chambers asked for forgiveness for her words in the past to make the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community feel unwelcome.

"Our angry, hateful venomous comments dehumanizes other people," she said in the video. "Whether you believe you're so right or not, you're dehumanizing others. And even if you feel like you're defending the Bible or Jesus or whatever, you're breaking his heart. And you're breaking the hearts of Christians who want so badly to show love."

Reach Getahn Ward at 615-726-5968 and on Twitter @getahn.