I would have to change who I am to be a member of your church.
The language would be repentant.
There needs to be some repentance here.
For my marriage?
Yes.
What the hell have I gotten myself into.
Hi, I’m Grace Baldridge.
I’m a lesbian, big shock.
And I’m also a Christian.
As the daughter of an Episcopal priest, I was raised in the rectory.
And I built a strong connection to my faith, although I eventually swapped out the christian
rock for creepy folk music.
Anyway, as a queer Christian, there is an undeniable tension between my faith and my community.
In a time where it seems division is favored over discourse–
–I want to start a dialogue: good, bad or downright sacrilegious.
Fortunately, God gave me a curious mind and access to a film crew, so I'm going to reach
across the aisle, or pew I guess, to see if we can break bread or if we'll continue to throw stones.
Atlanta, Georgia is a metropolitan city located in the Bible Belt.
It's the perfect intersection of faith and the queer community.
Sometimes they turn out.
There are over a thousand places of worship in 132 square miles and their annual pride
celebration has over 300,000 participants.
Pride is a place to build love, hope and inspiration.
This is honestly the most makeup I've worn in years.
But there is always someone there to rain on the parades.
Pun intended.
We've become all too familiar with what this form of bigotry looks like.
From funerals to pride parades, these street preachers condemn entire communities in the
name of God, by way of megaphones and tacky signs.
Probably One Direction.
This is Ruben Israel.
I recognized him because I've seen him at LA Pride over the last five years.
He's probably somewhere over here, or there, or here.
You get it.
I'm concerned about our country, and I'm concerned about where it's heading.
We're the buzzing, irritating noise that you can't help but see.
Do you feel that people on the other side of the barricade, when you're picketing,
feel love from your group?
We have this terminology today called "tough love".
Why can't you at least file me in a box of tough love?
In all my years of talking to people on the street, most people have heard God loves them.
So we took a census.
And what we found was that people do generally believe that God loves them but often do not
experience love from people who believe in him.
My mom loves me, my sister loves me, my brother loves me,
my friends love me, regardless if I'm gay.
So it doesn't matter!
Willfully ignorant Christians like Ruben, don't rock me anymore.
But the impact of this kind of intolerance is undeniable.
I'm in Piedmont Park, the home base for Atlanta pride festivities, to meet with Peter Nunn.
Peter is a hairstylist, husband, dog parent, and a conversion therapy survivor.
I firmly believed that God didn't want me to be gay and that he was all powerful and he could fix it.
At the age of 15, unbeknownst to him, Peter was sent to a therapy center in Iowa by his parents.
My dad took me on a trip and didn't tell me where we were going.
And then, I remember very well, we were in a layover in Saint Louis and he told me that
he was taking me to a therapy center in Iowa to fix whatever weird sexual shit was going on with me.
Then he told me that if that didn't work, that he was going to send me to a military
school to try to make me a man.
Conversion or reparative therapy is the practice of trying to change an individual's sexual
orientation using psychological or spiritual interventions.
Conversion therapy has been around since the 19th century, utilizing methods ranging from
invasive questioning to electroshock.
These practices have since been opposed by the American Medical Association,
The American Psychiatric Association, the Pan American Health Organization and more.
What were some of the lines of questioning that you remember particularly well.
A lot of stuff about if I had ever been molested, if I had masterbated.
One of the therapists asking the size of my penis.
But then it went back to, "You have to fight this. You have to be fixed."
What was that five year period like when you got back.
I would spend every Sunday in church praying and crying, every night in bed praying and
crying for these desires to go away.
I was probably at an all time low.
After years of battling depression and trying to pray the gay away, it was Atlanta Pride
that inspired Peter to finally commit to loving himself.
During the parade, the PFLAG group marched by and they were holding signs that said
"I love my lesbian daughter," or "I love my gay son."
And I just...I wanted that so much.
And not just from family or from friends, but I wanted to love myself that way.
Peter is one of the 350,000 LGBTQ Americans to endure conversion therapy as an adolescent.
Conversion therapy for minors remains legal in 36 states.
Peter's journey to self-acceptance led him to explore and question his faith, and he's not alone in that.
Many queer people wrestle with faith, myself included.
And while I've arrived at a point of reconciliation, others take a very different road.
So I am on my way to meet Jackie Hill Perry, which is a sentence I really did not think I would ever say.
Jackie Hill Perry is a wife, mother, teacher, author, poet, and an ex-lesbian.
This means that, despite experiencing same sex attraction, Jackie has chosen to commit
to a heterosexual relationship with her husband, Preston.
I've been watching Jackie's videos for years.
Because I've always had a fascination with understanding people that I disagree with.
You have already been deceived if you think sex is not included in the discussion about what God is lord over.
Jackie did not experience conversion therapy, but at the age of 19, she felt God speak to
her and reveal the sin in her life, both holistically and with regards to her sexuality.
You are in what, I think a lot of people would view, as a very conventionally heterosexual relationship.
Absolutely.
How do you define yourself though?
I define myself as Christian.
I just feel like it's unhelpful to define my personhood by what I am attracted to or
who I like, but rather, who do I serve?
Do you still experience same sex attraction?
Yeah.
Women are still pretty, and women are still beautiful.
And I think that there are still things about women that compel me to want to know them
more than what I believe is okay.
There's no secrecy, it's not my vulnerability, so he knows where I am, if I'm having a dream
about my ex-girlfriend, he knows about it.
To this day?
Yeah.
Really?
I think it's definitely something that I can see myself wrestling with and wrestling through,
probably until the day I go to glory.
I was struck by how open Jackie was with me about her struggles.
And how supportive a relationship she's built with Preston, but I was still struggling with
the way that many churches prescribed Jackie's message as the only resolution to faith and sexuality.
I wonder, what is your opinion of reparative conversion therapy?
I'm not a fan just because I don't believe that God's heart is to change people's orientation.
I don't see God calling people to be straight, I see him calling people to be holy.
Do you think that you have more in common with me, or with the protesters that I spoke with yesterday.
I have nothing in common with them.
The way it's presented is sinful.
Some of the conclusions they come to about people– indignifying them, is sinful.
I think they tend to fall more on the Pharisees side than Jesus's side.
Why do you think that you're grouped in with a lot of this hateful rhetoric that we hear
from the Christian community about the LGBT community and how do you feel about that?
I think people have used testimonies such as mine to weaponize people, or be used as
a weapon to abuse and to be harmful and to lack empathy.
There isn't an affirming from me from some of the perspectives that you hold, but also
I think the love is, that I don't feel the need to constantly tell you I disagree.
In your view, is my marriage to my wife a cross of mine?
If we were, I guess, to apply that to you, the marriage and the relationship is something to put on the cross.
Oh.
So my marriage is like, no you gotta...divorce?
That's a lot of paperwork, Jackie.
I don't know what kind of time you think I have.
But even if I agreed with you I don't have the brain power for a divorce.
Jackie and I spoke for hours and she had her own questions for me.
She asked me what advice I would give to Christians like her.
I've talked to a lot of people this weekend who have been really, really hurt.
Your way of dealing with things is closer to the side that is causing harm and that
spike in suicide rates and a great deal of hurt, than the side of Christianity that I
associate with.
I know that you do everything with love and I believe that you believe everything you say.
And I believe you have a beautiful life, but I do think that there is a lot of pain being
caused in the church right now and it's sort of a problem that they don't want to deal with.
And I don't think that they want to discuss Christians like me, that we exist.
LGBTQ adolescents that experience conversion therapy or rejections from their families
and faith communities are 8 times more likely to attempt suicide than those from accepting environments.
I've never been to a Baptist service before, I don't think.
Yeah?
Did I do that right?
This trip is going–I'm doubting everything.
I'm doubting my faith, my abilities to drive a car...
Am I even gay?!
I am, I'm very gay.
That part hasn't changed.
This is Leea Allen, a seminary student and a parishioner at Park Avenue Baptist Church.
That's right folks, this is an affirming Baptist church.
One of only a handful in the entire state of Georgia.
I think it was a surreal moment for me, when I realized that I found a place like this.
That was, not just feeding me emotionally and making me feel loved and being surrounded
by such a diverse and inclusive community, but feeding me spiritually.
A recent study found that more than 40 percent of queer people identify as Christian.
So to invalidate our existence is both damaging and misguided.
The fact of the matter is, Christians like me do exist.
The park avenue service not only exceeded my expectations, it torpedoed them.
Because these parishioners have found a place of restoration, in a faith group that so often
casts them out.
It was an experience that I will never forget.
She wasn't ready for the spirit!
Same!
I just thought I was coming to church.
You are coming to church, honey!
That's how it works.
I told Leea, "There's a good chance I'm gonna cry."
Second song in.
There she goes.
Listen, you can't control the holy ghost, honey.
When she wants to come up and say that you are loved, you gotta just receive it.
In this unique baptist church, people feel God's love, regardless of who they are.
But for Leea, raised a traditional Baptist, coming out led to divisions at church, and
among family members.
She came in the room and shook me and was like, "You're not gay."
And she was crying over me and you know, telling the demon to come out.
And "I wish you were dead, rather than be gay."
I was so shocked.
And I was also disappointed in myself, because I knew that this was a moment where they weren't
proud of me.
In that moment you felt disappointment?
Yeah.
A lot of shame.
Yeah, I went through, over the next few years, from that moment, coming in and out of the
closet, trying to convince myself and tell them, "You're right.
I'm not gay anymore, I'm gonna marry a man.
I'm gonna have kids."
And mentally and emotionally I went to a very, very dark place.
Leea's path was not an easy one, but it was their faith that led them to a life affirming realization.
There's no division in me of being black and being non-binary and being attracted to women.
The sacred, the secular, it's all one spirit that was divinely created.
God intentionally designed me to be different.
And how beautifully diverse is God's creation?
You know?
Unfortunately people limit God and limit the possibilities of God when they do that.
Was there are particular turning point to you in how you got to who I'm meeting now?
I find confidence in knowing that there's a God who is so much bigger than the judgement
of narrow minded people try to make God out to be.
I call God "mother", "woman".
I think God must be a woman because–
Ariana Grande did make that very clear.
The prophet, Ariana Grande, she did say!
In the end I came to a point where I decided I wasn't a believer.
Christianity has done a lot of harm to the LGBTQ community throughout history.
If you are part of a belief system that has systemically done harm to people, are you
in any way contributing toward that harm by attaching that name of "Christian" or "believer"
or whatever it is to yourself.
God is so vast, and so expansive and so big and so mysterious that God can be called my
many names.
Just know God exists.
God is who God is.
I am that I am.
And how powerful is that.
I think it's a lot easier to say you are gay or you're Christian, you can't be both.
The way we interpret scripture is so different that it isn't even an agree to disagree.
It's just we disagree.
I think people with my position and people with your position, we need to be friends
more often.
And we need to talk, and we need to understand each other's perspectives and we need to dialogue
and challenge each other on things.
And I think that cannot happen unless we're willing to be uncomfortable.
Being uncomfortable can be a good thing.
I feel inspired to keep stepping outside my comfort zone, in the hopes of bridging these
cultural, spiritual and political divides.
So...no pressure, Grace.