Gay Conservative

According to Fox61 in Connecticut and FOX News, a small church in Bridgeport–run by Manifested Glory Ministries–has been performing exorcisms on teenagers believed to be gay. The YouTube video posted by the ministry has been deleted (along with their channel) because of all of the negative attention, and all users who had saved it found it yanked by YouTube because the ministry leaders filed “copyright infringement” complaints (I call BS). If you go to the Fox61 link, you can see clips of the video. The heads of the ministry, including the Rev. and his wife Patricia McKinney, angrily ejected reporters from their radio station yesterday, refusing to talk publicly about the video clip or their practice of exorcism with teens involved in their ministry who are rumored to be gay.

Last year, I shared my coming-out story. I grew up in a very religious (note, I said religious, not spiritual) home. Church was so much a part of our lives that when my family came to Phoenix in 1997, while I was a senior in high school, the only way my siblings and I knew to make friends was to go find a church and get involved in the youth group. Church and beliefs were very important to us. I went to bible school, interned for two youth ministers and later became a music minister/worship leader and toured with a Christian band for a few years. I was also a very unpleasant person much of the time, mostly because there was a part of me that knew I was a lesbian and I refused to acknowledge it. If I did, it would be a damning sin, one that would strip me of my salvation. It would end my life as I knew it, with my support system, my friends and the places that were familiar and comfortable to me. Then, when I couldn’t deny it any longer just six and a half years ago, I tried to find justification in scripture to kill myself.

Matthew 18:7-9 says, “woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having to eyes, to be cast into hell fire.” If anybody knows what it means to take scripture the wrong way, I do. I took this group of verses completely out of context and believed that it would have been better to commit suicide than it would have been to admit that I’m gay and go on living with a sin that God could not forgive.

It took me six months to come to a place where I was willing to entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, I’d been taught wrong–and that I’d taught the same message in horrible error. To this day, I feel guilty for teaching the lesson that homosexuality is a mortal sin, that gay and lesbian people are the way they are because they have refused to accept God’s grace and God has given up on them. I have read stories of Christian youth who didn’t give their lives a chance and completed their suicides because of their fear of being rejected by their church families. I was part of the perpetuation of the myth that God condemns people and gives them up to homosexuality, and that lifestyle marks a soul as being forever lost.

I see stories like the ones linked above and it breaks my heart, because young people all over the world are being taught to hate themselves by people claiming to love God. I still believe; I just happen to believe in a different theological vein than most fellow Christians do. It’s something we’ll have to agree to disagree on because, as we all admit, we take what we believe on an awful lot of faith. But the young man in the video has my deepest sympathies. His faith–as well as who he is–is coming into question now, and he doesn’t know which way to go. I’ve been there. I know.

What concerns me is that the leaders of this ministry are completely unwilling to speak publicly about what they do. The bible also forbids doing these things in secret, and I wonder what else this church might be hiding. I’m living proof that being gay is NOT a mortal sin, and God still loves me despite what people may think or say about the condition of my soul. Should any of those young people questioning their faith, their salvation or themselves see this missive, know this: you are not alone. Many people have survived this struggle, and we’ve come out stronger on the other side. Don’t let any human being tell you what you should believe. Seek the counsel of people whom you believe to be wise, but in the end, only YOU can know what you believe, and why.

The only “gay demon” is the one being created by theology.