Buddhist monk Kodo Nishimura and Christian pastor Yoshiki Nakamura share a belief that LGBTQ lifestyles and organized religion can coexist, even when Japanese society makes people believe that finding such commonality is impossible.
Often, LGBTQ people, like Nishimura and Nakamura, are seldom welcomed openly. That, plus personal experiences of exclusion, has been reason enough for many LGBTQ people and their communities to abandon religion altogether.
But homophobia, in a country that has yet to legalize gay marriage, has not stopped these Tokyo-based LGBTQ religious leaders from doing what they are called to do — sharing the teachings of Buddha and Jesus, albeit in less traditional ways.