Christian rock star out as gay. Here’s the letter he wrote to the world

Contents:

• BLACKS, GAYS AND THE CHURCH: A COMPLEX RELATNSHIP
• 40 BT GAY SGERS & MICIANS OF ALL TIME (LGBTQ+ SGERS)
• WHO'S GAY GOSPEL MIC?
• SOUTHERN GOSPEL SGER KENNY BISHOP IS NOW A GAY UNED CHURCH OF CHRIST PASTOR
• GAYS, GOD AND GOSPEL MIC
• FOR GAY CHRISTIAN MICIANS, WORK BALANC FAH, ART, LOVE
• THE GAY SISTERS
• KENYAN GOSPEL ARTISTE OUT AS GAY
• GREATT GAY SGERS OF ALL TIME
• CHRISTIAN ROCK STAR OUT AS GAY. HERE’S THE LETTER HE WROTE TO THE WORLD
• EX-GAY GOSPEL SGER DONNIE MCCLURK UNR FIRE AFTER SPEAKG OUT AGAST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RULG

BLACKS, GAYS AND THE CHURCH: A COMPLEX RELATNSHIP

The worship sger, who me out as gay on The Voice 2019, told Baldridge he was let go om his job as a worship lear at his church after revealg his sexualy.

The reactn mirrors the way many morn megachurch eher offer vague statements about acceptance while tryg to shift the foc away om their anti-gay polici or stay quiet on the issue.

40 BT GAY SGERS & MICIANS OF ALL TIME (LGBTQ+ SGERS)

Sger-songwrer Julien Baker me out as queer 2016 alongsi Trey Pearson om Everyday Sunday, who me out as gay an emotnal letter to fans. While many black pastors nmn gays and lbians om the pulp, the choir lofts behd them often are filled wh gay sgers and micians.

Print Obama's recent announcement that he supports same-sex marriage turned the spotlight on rervatns many blacks harbor about gay rights. Most polls show Ain-Amerins evenly divid about gay marriage, but the vol opposn, led by preachers, has gaed more attentn.

WHO'S GAY GOSPEL MIC?

The virtuosy of gay sgers, micians and posers has been the drivg force velopg popular gospel choirs — even chart-toppg, Grammy-wng acts — that make money for a church, help expand ngregatns and raise the profil of pastors. It all happens unr an unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" ctom that allows gay people to be active the church, though closeted, and church to reap the benefs of their membership. "On the one hand, you're nurtured the choir but you also have to s through some of those fire and brimstone sermons about homosexualy beg an abomatn, " says E.

SOUTHERN GOSPEL SGER KENNY BISHOP IS NOW A GAY UNED CHURCH OF CHRIST PASTOR

Bishop Yvette Flunr of Oakland, Calif., is openly gay and the founr of The Fellowship, an anizatn of black pastors and church openly welg of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr members.

" Commentator Keh Boyk, who is Ain-Amerin and gay, lls a paradox: "The church might be the most homophobic and most homotolerant of any stutn the black muny. " Woon, the pastor North Carola, agre that the prence of gays and lbians choirs or other church mistri reveals the "duplicy and, ankly, the hypocrisy of the black church.... He says his church also has ntued to support gay members who have ntracted HIV/AIDS, unlike some other church that ostracize them — a practice many people on both sis of the issue say has been mon.

But many others say they are torn between their allegiance to their church, which form the cultural and stutnal backbone of black muni, and their sire to live ee of homophobia. " Gospel mic superstar and megachurch pastor Donnie McClurk shocked the non-gospel world years ago by revealg a 2001 book that God "livered" him om a gay "liftyle" that he said was a rult of beg sexually abed as a boy.

GAYS, GOD AND GOSPEL MIC

Pastors No Strangers To Gay Sex Sndals The sexual behavr of some male pastors, many of them also gospel sgers, also has stoked mors or led to sndal. The ntroversy was all the more notable bee Long was a proment supporter of Geia's gay marriage ban, passed 2004, and a proposed U. And Coretta Stt Kg (who supported gay marriage), led a march to prott same-sex marriage that started at the Kg fay crypt.

The Bay Area the 1970s had arguably the most visible prence of LGBT members black church, jt as the broar gay rights movement had gaed momentum the regn. The Love Center Church Oakland, Calif., found by the late Bishop Walter Hawks, one of gospel mic's biggt stars the 1970s and 1980s, ma wav for welg black gays and lbians. The fact that there are many mic artists who are openly gay is a big step for LGBTQ+ rights, which mak the artists important and fluential.

Eher way, g out as gay was a life-changg (and liberatg) cisn for Ricky Mart, and he is now nsired one of the most fluential LGBT artists the world.

FOR GAY CHRISTIAN MICIANS, WORK BALANC FAH, ART, LOVE

Well, he is certaly makg a difference, pecially the metal genre, which mak him one of the most fluential gay sgers mic dtry.

Wh the succs of his album Trspassg, Lambert was also the first openly gay sger to have an album reach number one on the Billboard 200 charts. That beg said, Gee Michael’s ntributn to LGBT right was immense, and he will always be remembered as one of the most proment gay sgers of all time.

THE GAY SISTERS

Regardg his personal life, he was married to his high-school sweetheart San Deixler the 60s, but he me out as gay 2007. In one of the terviews, Stipe scribed himself as a ‘queer artist’, although he prevly didn’t want to label himself gay or straight.

The song spent 19 weeks on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 – meanwhile, Lil Nas X me out as gay, which ma him the first artist to do so while beg on the top of the chart. Ltle did I know that Kenny had strayed far om his Fundamentalist Christian roots and was now a married gay man and a bivotnal pastor at Bluegrass Uned Church of Christ  Lexgton, Kentucky! (Photo by Paras Griff/Getty Imag for ESSENCE)McClurk, 61, had prevly opened up years ago about his past stggl wh homosexualy, which he lled a “perversn, ” and claimed that he was able to supprs his sexual orientatn, cg his and many Christian church’ stance on homosexualy as a admted that he still had urg to be wh men but chose not to.

KENYAN GOSPEL ARTISTE OUT AS GAY

”Read More: Kirk Frankl lls out homophobia the church: ‘Nothg to do wh the Bible’Now, the Grammy Award-wng artist says he believ his stggle over his sexualy will leave him whout the fay he always dreamed of. ”Read More: Kelly Rowland explas why she left her church after Dty’s Child’s ‘secular mic’ cricism“There may be some who will read this and rent some of the statements ma about homosexualy.

In Jam Baldw’s “Go Tell It on the Mounta, ” the protagonist, thly veiled as himself, wrtl wh two cril qutns: What do mean to be a Black Amerin, and what do mean to be gay?

” Our nnectns and ntributns to the larger Black relig smos are secrated every time homophobic pronouncements go unchecked the holy plac of worship. “Those nomatns are more open to gays whout announcg , bee of s lurgy and anizatnal stcture like Pentestal church, ” Patterson shared. The Black gay male mega-stars are always forced to go back to the closet, publicly nouncg their sexual orientatn at the church’s annual nvotn.

GREATT GAY SGERS OF ALL TIME

McClurk is a three-time Gospel Grammy wner, was a revered judge on BET’s “Sunday Bt, ” a realy TV-gospel sgg petn show, and the poster boy for Ain Amerin ex-gay mistri. Acrdg to McClurk, Black mal, like Tonéx, are gay bee of sexual moltatn, an absentee father, or they didn’t have strong male imag around them.

Confg, however, same-genr sexual vlence wh homosexualy, McClurk misterpreted the moltatn as the reason for his gay sexual orientatn. What mak Tonéx unique is not that he was once a gay gospel mic artist and pastor, but rather he told the tth about his sexualy.

A report followg the 2009 Convotn asked, “Is COGIC gog to be silent while an anized culture of homosexual misters and bishops populate s pulps? ” COGIC nnot ny that the church gets s J dance on and Amen shouts to a black gay male queer gospel athetic every Sunday, and no one knows better than McClurk himself.

CHRISTIAN ROCK STAR OUT AS GAY. HERE’S THE LETTER HE WROTE TO THE WORLD

“I learned yterday—through the ‘Phoenix’ article regardg the Cy of Boston Gospel Ft—of the pth and breadth of Donnie McClurk’s views on the gay muny, ” Julie Burns wrote to me an email. However, 2020, Morehoe admted transgenr male stunts to s g class, and there’s talk of creatg an openly gay gospel choir.

Throughout the middle s of the 20th century, a signifint number of gay or "queer" artists left their mark on gospel mic, a cultural form that many nsir to be Ameri's most origal. The say on "the children, " the faial appellatn ed to refer to gays the church, is siar ntent and theme to "The Gospel Sound" that Heilbut is keen on revealg the gospel world all s plexy, paradox and ntradictn. It may not do much for Mahalia Jackson's "satly image" to know that she was notorly stgy and uld cs like a sailor, but fills out her human portra jt say on "the children, " however, is more a medatn on homosexualy and black church.

Heilbut gets beyond simply acknowledgg the prence of gays black church and the fact that gospel artists such as Sam Cooke, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Alex Bradford and Jam Cleveland (to name only a few) were known to be gay or "queer. " He intifi a time when black church were safe spac for "the children, " a time when gays and lbians sought and found refuge church that not only acknowledged their prence but also their value.

EX-GAY GOSPEL SGER DONNIE MCCLURK UNR FIRE AFTER SPEAKG OUT AGAST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RULG

For this reason, many black gays and lbians once were among "the most fahful members" of black church and "the most avid celebrants" of s worship culture. When he surveys the current world of gospel, seeg (wh some exceptns) so far om s glor past and so nial of s gay roots, the anger and the grief nearly overtake is soberg to regnize that what Heilbut ultimately acplish the say is an acuntg of gospel mic's fall om grace to near irrelevance.

He knows that the overemphasis on nmng homosexualy that one fds the gospel world and many black church is not a sign of prophetic wns. If that is te, then that is precisely what we have Anthony Heilbut, the fan who perhaps knows a ltle too much but has found a betiful way to tell all about through for a slishow of the greatt Gospel songs:Gospel SongsRelatedRelign and SexualyslipollajaxChristianyGay ChristiansSacred Sounds. The shows Nashville and Empire have rporated subplots dramatizg how difficult is to be out and gay  the worlds of untry mic and hip-hop, rpectively.

But if someone wanted to wre a storyle wh a gay character a genre that would make for even more heightened drama, they might want to set the world of Christian mic, where the proscriptns agast beg proudly gay have ma for a plited scenar. The nsens: Although many are personally proud of Pearson, none would ntend that an out gay person uld have a viable reer the mastream of a genre this driven by theologil nservatism.