Side B Christianity is the conviction that a person can be gay, lesbian, or bisexual and hold to the historic Christian teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, without treating their orientation as a sin, a failure, or something that disqualifies them from full belonging in the church. It's a posture before it's a position: welcome first, theology worked out together rather than handed down as a condition of entry.
That's the short definition. The rest of this post is about what that actually looks like in practice, because the term gets misunderstood from both directions, and the misunderstandings matter.
Where the name comes from
Side A and Side B aren't official denominational categories. They're shorthand that emerged from within the gay Christian community itself, as a way to describe two different conclusions Bible-believing Christians have reached about the same set of questions.
Side A Christians affirm same-sex marriage and relationships, interpreting the traditional prohibition texts differently than the historic church has. Side B Christians hold the traditional sexual ethic, that sexual intimacy belongs within marriage between a man and a woman, while affirming that gay and lesbian people are not less Christian, not on probation, and not required to change who they're attracted to in order to belong.
Both labels describe real, thoughtful positions held by people who love Jesus and take Scripture seriously. This post isn't a case against Side A. It's an explanation of what Side B holds, since that's the tradition soulintension comes from and the one most often flattened into a caricature by people who've never talked to anyone who actually lives it.
What Side B is not
A few clarifications, because most of the resistance to Side B comes from misunderstanding it rather than disagreeing with what it actually says.
Side B is not recycled conversion therapy. Nobody in this space is claiming that orientation can or should be prayed away, therapized away, or willed away. That approach has caused real harm, and Side B explicitly rejects it.
Side B does not require celibacy as some kind of default position for being gay. Some Side B Christians remain celibate. Some pursue mixed-orientation marriage. Some hold the question open. Orientation doesn't dictate a person's calling, and nobody is handed a script for how their life has to look on day one.
Side B is not a demand that gay Christians hide who they are, use euphemisms for their experience, or pretend to be someone they're not in order to be accepted. Plenty of Side B Christians are open about their orientation, use the word gay to describe their experience, and are fully known in their communities.
What Side B actually holds
At its core, Side B rests on two convictions held together rather than traded off against each other.
The first is a high view of belonging. Every person, regardless of orientation, is made in the image of God and welcome in the family of God without qualification. This isn't a grudging tolerance or a "love the sinner" consolation prize. It's a full, unqualified yes to the question of whether gay and lesbian people belong in the church.
The second is a traditional sexual ethic. Side B holds that Scripture's teaching on marriage as between a man and a woman is still the church's calling to uphold, not because gay people are uniquely singled out for a harder rule, but because the same ethic, sex belongs within marriage between a man and a woman, applies to every Christian regardless of orientation. That said, honesty requires naming what's different. For a straight single person, the sexual ethic asks for restraint now, with marriage remaining a real, ordinary hope for later. For most gay and lesbian Christians who hold this conviction, it can mean something considerably heavier: that a marriage aligned with their own attraction may never be an option at all, not as a temporary season to get through but as a lasting reality. That's not a footnote. It's a genuine and costly sacrifice, and Side B doesn't pretend otherwise or flatten it into the same ask as premarital abstinence.
Holding both convictions at the same time is exactly where Side B lives, and it's also exactly where it draws criticism from both directions. Some people think full welcome should eventually lead Side B toward affirming same-sex relationships, since anything less feels like welcome with an asterisk. Others say that having a boundary at all means the welcome isn't truly unconditional. Side B disagrees. You can hold a boundary and still welcome people fully. But Side B doesn't pretend that boundary costs everyone the same. For many gay and lesbian Christians, keeping this conviction is a real, heavy cost, and Side B says so honestly instead of pretending otherwise.
Why this matters more as a posture than a position paper
You'll notice this post has spent more time on how gay and lesbian people are treated than on parsing individual Bible passages. That's intentional. The theological case for a traditional sexual ethic is a real conversation worth having carefully, and we'll get into it in more depth elsewhere on this site. But the reason so many gay and lesbian people have left the church isn't usually because they lost an argument about Romans or Leviticus. It's because the posture they encountered, long before any theology was discussed, communicated that they weren't welcome.
Side B, done well, tries to close that gap. It says you can hold a traditional sexual ethic and still get the posture right: real relationship, real honesty, real belonging, without either compromising conviction or compromising love.
If you're still working out what you believe
You don't have to arrive at a fully settled position to be welcome. Side B is not a test you have to pass before you're allowed in the door. It's a description of where this particular community has landed after wrestling honestly with Scripture, and an invitation to work through those same questions alongside us if you're still figuring out where you stand.
If that's where you are, that's a completely great place to start.