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Longtime gay-rights advocate Marian Edmonds-Allen is leaving Utah to become executive director of a faith-based New York nonprofit that focuses on the LGBT community.

Parity is a national organization that works to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals seeking careers as pastors. It also provides programs aimed at empowering youths to integrate spirituality with their sexual orientation and gender identity.

"We are thrilled that Marian is coming to us," Parity spokeswoman Christa Orth said Thursday. "She has a vision to do more interfaith work, which is so important in the LGBT community. We also have a youth program, and she's very keen to expand our work to homeless youth."

Orth cited the work of Edmonds-Allen with LGBT families and suicide prevention as reasons the former director of the Utah Pride Center was picked to lead Parity.

"I am thrilled for the opportunity," Edmonds-Allen said. "The organization is at the forefront of the intersection of LGBTQ and faith, which is near and dear to my heart, but also where religious liberty and equality meet."

An ordained minister and the former co-pastor of Salt Lake City's Cathedral of Hope community-outreach ministry to homeless LGBT youths, Edmonds-Allen is the co-director of LGBTQ Youth Continuum of Care and Operation Safety Net, which work to prevent LGBTQ youth suicides.

She previously was the Utah-based national director for San Francisco State University's Family Acceptance Project and head of Ogden's OUTreach Resource Center.

Parity board Chairman Tim Palmer Curl said Edmonds-Allen's skills and background make her the perfect choice.

"Our ministry is to create reconciliation between these poles of identity, and to create welcoming, inclusive spaces for LGBTQ Christians in the global church," he said. "We know she will be sorely missed in Utah. But she will be doing the Lord's work here in New York City."

Founded in 1997 under the name Presbyterian Welcome, Parity's first mission was to advocate for more inclusive membership and ordination policies within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The church has since changed those polices and voted to ordain LGBT individuals in 2011. Parity has since become more ecumenical, Orth said.

Edmonds-Allen, who turned 50 on Thursday, has no plans to cut her ties with Utah, although she and her family will move to New York. She expects to maintain an advisory role with Continuum and Safety Net and has other initiatives in development.

"I am sad to leave. Utah is an exceptional place where people have an extraordinary willingness to step up and make a difference," she said. "I believe that the great gains made in LGBTQ equality nationwide have much to do with the commitment and hard work from a wide variety of Utahns."