Whe mak se for gay marriage – Harvard Gazette

Contents:

• STRANGER AT THE GATE: TO BE GAY AND CHRISTIAN AMERI PAPERBACK – APRIL 1, 1995
• MEL AND GARY STORY – MARRIED GAY PARTNER MEL WHE AND GARY NIXON
• WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN
• STRANGER AT THE GATE: TO BE GAY AND CHRISTIAN AMERI
• A GAY GIRL’S GUI TO THE 2023 WOMEN’S WORLD CUP
• STRANGER AT THE GATE TO BE GAY & CHRISTIAN AMERI
• WHE MAK SE FOR GAY MARRIAGE

STRANGER AT THE GATE: TO BE GAY AND CHRISTIAN AMERI PAPERBACK – APRIL 1, 1995

Raised as a evangelil Christian, tght that homosexualy was a s, he fought to overe his own homosexual orientatn for s all ways available to him: prayer, psychotherapy, exorcism, electric shock, marriage and fay. That stggle and his haltg, poignant steps to unrstand and accept his homosexualy, rencile wh his Christian fah, and exprs his sexualy rpectfully and rponsibly, are scribed his book Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian Ameri, published 1993, he me out publicly when he was stalled as an at the Dallas Cathedral of Hope of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolan Communy Church (UFMCC). Mel has been velopg his work wh Soulforce prcipl for many was dismayed by the creasg nontatnal tone on both sis the homosexual issue, and the hateful words and actns that creased the divi.

The prcipl were lled satyagraha or "soul force" by Gandhi, who based many of them on the teachgs of J, and Whe adopted them to addrs the sufferg of lbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenred his six years wh UFMCC, he traveled across the untry nstantly to mister to those impacted by prejudice and hatred agast gays and to mpaign for civil rights, theologil rensiratn, and social acceptance for sexual mori. Sce 1993, he has voted himself full-time to mister to lbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgenred and to work on their behalf the media, the polil procs, and wh fellow relig the foundg of Soulforce 1998, Mel and his Soulforce volunteers have have waged a relentls mpaign rangg om their first vis to Jerry Falwell, October of 1999, to three years of nontg the Southern Baptist Conventn, and the U.

Mel Whe and his hband, Gary Nixon, have traveled across the untry, speakg on universy mp, teachg the “soul force” prcipl of Gandhi and Kg, anizg people of fah to do jtice, and nontg relig lears whose anti-gay rhetoric Whe believ, “leads to the sufferg and ath of God’s lbian and gay children. After more than three s of unselg and “anti-gay” therapy cludg prayer, fastg, exorcism, and electric shock, Mel Whe was able to rencile his Christian theology and his sexual orientatn.

MEL AND GARY STORY – MARRIED GAY PARTNER MEL WHE AND GARY NIXON

In April, 1994, wh the publitn of Stranger at the Gate, Mel me out of the closet to give hope and healg to other lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Christians, to nont the misleadg anti-gay rhetoric of the radil right, and to lnch his own fight for jtice and unrstandg for LGBT people. Whe was appoted natnal Mister of Jtice (an unsalaried posn) for the Universal Fellowship of Metropolan Communy Church, the only Christian nomatn wh a primary outreach to gays and lbians.

WARNG: EXOD IS FISHED BUT THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT HAS JT BEGUN

Whe to reprent the nomatn’s 300 church the current natnwi stggle on behalf of jtice for all who suffer, gay and non-gay the summer of 1996, UFMCC moved to their newly acquired world headquarters Wt Hollywood, California. Across this untry, ” Mel explas, “our gay brothers and lbian sisters are the victims of a tidal wave of tolerance, discrimatn, and vlent crime flowg directly out of the anti-gay rhetoric of the radil right. Whe’s 22 day fast the Virgia Beach Cy Jail, Pat Robertson vised him jail, heard Whe’s plea and went on the air to say clearly that he “abhorred the growg vlence agast gay and lbian people.

In this movg, bt-sellg tobgraphy, Mel Whe out of the closet to give hope to other gay and lbian Christians, to nont the misleadg anti-gay rhetoric of the radil right, and to lnch his own fight for jtice and unrstandg for God’s gay and lbian children.

In this remarkable book, Mel Whe tails his twenty-five years of beg unseled, exorcised, electric-shocked, prayed for, and nearly driven to suici bee his church said homosexualy was wrong. A former chostwrer for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, and other relig-right personali, Whe offers a pellg story; gay rears raised a fundamentalist Christian environment will fd themselv sayg, “That happened to me. There are plenty of clergymen’s g-out stori (most by Anglin prits) and plenty of gay repli to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other antigay Christian evangelists, but on both unts, this is the one everybody’s been wag for.

STRANGER AT THE GATE: TO BE GAY AND CHRISTIAN AMERI

” Whe argu that some Christians see Genis 1 that is “natural” for a man and woman to have sex and bear children, and th “some people thk this means gay or lbian upl are ‘unnatural.

I’ll skip over the rt of the OT texts bee Whe mak a partially good pot about the Sodom narrative (though not pletely), and bee the rt of the OT texts that al wh homosexualy are not directly applible to today.

A GAY GIRL’S GUI TO THE 2023 WOMEN’S WORLD CUP

25 is most important: if the immediate rult of exchangg the tth of God for a lie is all sorts of sexual perversn (cludg heterosexual perversn), then, by fn, Pl is sayg that when someone mak the mment to a homosexual liftyle (or to a perverted heterosexual liftyle), this mment is agast the tth of God. The only problem wh this view is twofold: (a) Pl do not addrs whether homosexual clatn is even possibly to be nsired as a natural clatn; (b) that which is natural is not clatn at all, but what is signed. Smes says, “the homosexual people I know do not lt after each other any more than heterosexual people do…” Elsewhere, Smes clil psychology (though he fails to mentn those who would disagree wh his asssment).

For example, a recent issue of The Advote (a pro-gay magaze), 20 percent of those surveyed had had 51-300 different sex partners their lifetime, wh an addnal 8 percent havg had more than 300. I was fully prepared to go that route wh this issue, but as I got to the tails of the text and pared wh the rather poorly argued pro-gay exegis, I was more nvced than ever that Pl is makg a blanket nmnatn of homosexual behavr. Is really possible that God uld have overlooked the needs of lns of homosexuals the only book that is our fal revelatn of his will, jt so that we uld sort out what to do thoands of years later?

Unknown to his iends and lleagu, Whe was also a closeted gay man who was nearly driven to suici after two s of stgglg to save his marriage — and, he believed, his soul — wh "reparative therapi" cludg electric shock and exorcism. Ignored or rejected by all his famo lleagu — Robertson advised more therapy and "healg" — he began a mpaign of nonvlent ristance agast "spirual vlence, " leadg protts of anti-gay tolerance at events like the Southern Baptist Conventn.

STRANGER AT THE GATE TO BE GAY & CHRISTIAN AMERI

And substute the word "gay" for the word "Jew" durg those early years of the Nazi regime, you will be nvced that what [Hler's chief propagandist] Goebbels did is exactly what Jerry Falwell and [Foc on the Fay's] Jam Dobson and Pat Robertson and Pope John Pl II are dog now. Whether 's Mlim or Hdu or Jewish or Christian, fundamentalism is back, and is bloodthirsty, and is seekg to stroy everythg that threatens — and gay people apparently are threateng to . We fally got arrted si Vatin Square, kneelg on the place where a Sicilian gay man had burned himself to ath [to prott the church's anti-gay pronouncements] beneath the pope's wdow.

Backed by all the major health, tn, and mental health profsnal associatns, Lut mak an airtight se for endg the cel and pejorative stereotype agast gay and lbian persons that ntue to persist our hom, stutns, and church. Raised as an Evangelil Christian, tght that homosexualy was a s, Mel fought to overe his own homosexual orientatn for s all ways available to him: prayer, psychotherapy, exorcism, electric shock, marriage and fay. That stggle and his haltg, poignant steps to unrstand and accept his homosexualy, rencile wh his Christian fah, and exprs his sexualy rpectfully and rponsibly, are scribed his book Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian Ameri, published 1994.

After years of wrg for the Christian right, he me out as gay 1994[2] and voted himself full-time to mister to lbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenr people, also wrg extensively on the subject of gay Christians. Mike & Mel: Father-Son 'Amazg Race' Duo Screenwrer Mike Whe and his father, gay rights activist Mel Whe, recently danced, ran and bobsledd around the globe as part of The Amazg Race.

WHE MAK SE FOR GAY MARRIAGE

We didn't really thk about the nsequenc of participatg, or whether or not would be If our appearance on the show is boiled down to beg gay, I'm hopg that this myth that gay people n't parent will be burned up some way. Even if you don’t tst Alan’s motiv, you have to adm that his nfsn and apology are a giant step forward unrmg the credibily of those who ntue to hold out the false promis ma by the ex-gay movement. Que to the ntrary, Alan’s apology provoked ex-gay loyalists to hunker down, ri out the storm, re-anize and re-emerge wh an even more ant mment to their beliefs that that homosexuals n and mt be cured.

” Alan and the other soft-re changers don’t scribe homosexual acts as s (that’s the hard-re way) but they do clg to the old notn that God’s will for sexual relatnships is limed to one man wh one woman. ” Then they uld also say, “But if you ci to stggle agast your homosexual orientatn orr to stay a lovg relatnship wh a heterosexual spoe, we will support you that cisn as well.

Sce several close Christian iends of me have, over the last few years, revealed their homosexual orientatn to me I have taken ep tert the issue of homosexualy and also of the attu of the church towards gay men and women. You n probably well believe me when I say that has been almost impossible to fd any CHristian viewpot on the matter that do not take one of the two most extreme views - eher that all aspects of homosexualy and homosexual behavur should be accepted and that the classic Biblil texts have jt been misterpreted - or that every homosexual is an evil harbrger of doom to our praved generatn!

It helped me to unrstand more fully the tremendo torment volved growg up a largely heterosexual world wh a homosexual orientatn - I intified wh his stggl, sce I have stggled wh siar suatns and issu a heterosexual ntext. Schmidt for a passnate look at homosexualy and evangelil Christiany om a more scholarly viewpot - although he refers the stori of a number of iends and acquatanc, which helps keep om beg too tached.

The bt-sellg thor of Stranger at the Gate returns wh an sir’s exposé of the origs of the Christian fundamentalist movement and how s vilent anti-gay agenda has led to the rise of the Tea Party movement, among other forms of recent right wg extremism. Origally published as Relign Gone Bad, this book documents the war that fundamentalist Christians have waged agast gays and lbians and offers dramatic, well-documented evince that fundamentalist lears the name of protectg Ameri om sexual mori are wagg nothg ls than a “holy war” agast mocracy and liberty. Relign Gone Bad monstrat why all Amerins, secular and relig, gay and straight, mt stand together to rist the attacks of the relig right on the humany of lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people.

Last time at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the Netherlands lay claim to the honor of beg the team wh the most out LGBTQ players, but this year Atralia boasts 10 out players and overtak them for the tle of Gayt Team 2k23. Ireland’s historic entry to the tournament marks another triumph for out midfielr Sead Farrelly, whose natnal team but and 2023 return to the NWSL e more than six years after retirg om soccer the wake of systemic homophobic and sexual abe wh the league, which the Athletic first reported on 2021. After publicly g out as a gay man 1994, his own tobgraphy, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian Ameri, received worldwi acclaim; he leveraged his newfound platform to ll on likemd people of fah, askg them to jo him prott of the Relig Right’s most proment figur and their vlent treatment of LGBT people.

Soulforce nvened the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference, which exposed the misrmatn mpaign of Exod Internatnal and spoke clearly to the damage beg done by s ex-gay mistri across the untry. The nference offered workshops to people who seek to challenge the harmful effects of heterosexism, reparative therapy, ex-gay mistri and other efforts to change people’s sexual orientatn. He had lnched a headle-makg hunger strike and had threatened to starve himself unls Robertson met wh him to discs how the anti-gay rhetoric of the work’s 700 Club was g mental and even physil harm to thoands of gays and lbians.