COLORADO SPRINGS — The guard hailed as a hero after the December 2007 shooting at New Life Church says the church indicated she was not welcome there after she informed church officials that she is gay.

In a speech last Saturday at the Pride Center’s annual masquerade ball, a fundraiser for the gay community, Jeanne Assam said that she had accepted her sexual identity after a long struggle but that church officials had pushed her away.

New Life Pastor Brady Boyd told Gazette columnist Barry Noreen that Assam’s account is “absolutely untrue.”

“We welcome everyone at New Life,” Boyd said. “We would never tell someone to leave because of their sexual orientation. Jeanne will always be a hero at New Life.”

Assam told The Associated Press on Friday night that Boyd and others never used the exact word “unwelcome.”

“They just made it very clear I was no longer welcome,” she said, declining to elaborate.

Assam was celebrated for ending a murderous rampage at New Life on Dec. 9, 2007. That morning, 24-year-old Matthew Murray shot and killed two parishioners after having killed two other people the night before at a training center for Christian missionaries in Arvada. Assam, a member of New Life serving as a volunteer security guard, fired repeatedly at Murray, wounding him and pinning him down. He then shot himself.

New Life made headlines in 2006, when Pastor Ted Haggard departed after acknowledging that he had a relationship with a male escort.