Hey everybody
I have two very special guests here
with me today
I have Dannielle and Kristin from
Everyone is Gay
So stay tuned because we're about
To talk about coming out and religion
and you don't want to miss it
So like I said I have two very special
guests from Everyone Is Gay,
Dannielle and Kristin,
and where can my viewers
find you if they'd like to watch and read
your stuff?
The internet! The internet!
The internet is a great place
everyoneisgay.com specifically is a good
place to find us.
And then we're on all forms of social
media: twitter, instagram etc. just as
everyoneisgay. Yeah and on YouTube we're
everyoneisgay.com. The '.com' is spelled out
because someone took 'everyoneisgay'.
You're kidding?
No, it's just two children dancing. It's
just one video of two children dancing.
We don't know what to do about it so,
we move on. Yeah
I'll put all the links to that below in
the description and also will push over to
their channel at the end so you don't want
to miss that so stay tuned.
But today we're talking about coming out
and religion. And I know I've heard from
many of you that that's a concern of yours
It could be like an internal war, it can
also be like an external war, where you're
trying to talk to your pastor, your family
your friends about it. So what would you
say they should keep in mind when they're
going through this, I mean.
I mean for me I think that the first step
is patience and that's both patience with
yourself and patience with, you know,
family or friends who are religious and
who may have disagreed with who you are.
It takes a long time.
I came out to my Mum when I was 17, she's
super religious and it took us like a
decade of dialogue, of reading, of her
asking me questions, of me being really
angry, for us to get to a place that was
much more comfortable, and I'm sure we'll
go into some of those points in more
detail in a minute but definitely patience
is key.
Absolutely. And I would just say too, I
think we have a habit to, if you are a
person of faith to jump to
"Well I can't have my faith anymore"
and that's just not the case. I mean we
have a close personal friend, Ola Brody,
you can follow him all over, and he is
in seminary school, or maybe he just
graduated? Yeah I think he just graduated!
And he has like so many beautiful and
wonderful things to say about how he comes
to understand religion and faith for
himself as a gay man and it's just like
amazing, and the way that he writes about
it is just so deep and beautiful. And so
I think that one part of coming out to a
religious family is like "Oh I have lost
my faith" and that isn't always
necessarily the case.
Yeah, absolutely, and a big thing that we
also talk about is finding congregations
who are welcoming and accepting.
And there's a lot of those. In my research
that I've put together for the workbook
that'll be coming out soon, there are
Rabbis, there are pastors and preachers
of all different sects and religions that
are accepting and are themselves part of
the LGBT community and I think that a lot
of times, correct me if I'm wrong, a lot
of times people people automatically
assume that they're mutually exclusive.
"I can only be this or I can only be this
and I have to decide" versus realising
that's just who you are and who you are
can be a faith based person or not. And
that's completely your own choice as a
human. Yeah!
And not putting yourself in a place where,
because I think a lot of us try to still
go to our old church, or our old temple
or wherever, and if you feel like you're
not accepted there, it's really hard to
find that deep connection to your faith
because that's always in the back of your
mind, you know? And if you start to date
somebody you feel like, "hmm, can I bring
them to the place where I worship" or
"if I do, maybe I shouldn't be like
sitting too close to them" and you really
don't want to have those things happening
when you're trying to just be, you know,
in a faith place, which is a really
special place to be.
Yeah, definitely.
And, as someone who does not have a strong
connection to any religion, I'm talking
about myself, so I'm pointing to me, soo
but as someone who doesn't have like a
strong connection to any specific religion
and I'm not myself a person of faith, I
have so much respect for those who do.
Who do have that deep connection and so
I have the ability to dialogue with those
people and not make them feel like
"Oh, one of us is wrong, and one of us is
right, and so that's all we're going to
talk about here." It's so important to me
to have that respect and for people who do
have such a strong belief because I think
it's really beautiful and important.
Yeah. And it's part of what makes them
amazing people. It's like all part of our
makeup, right? It's not right or wrong,
it's preferences and what's important to
them, and part of who they are.
Absolutely. And then like, specifically, I
think for me, my journey, it was a lot
easier for me to accept me and also know
that I can have faith, but my relationship
to my family was super tricky. My Mum I
already talked about, but, you know, my
extended family is super religious as well
and we have ongoing conversations, and for
me a huge thing was being educated.
I know it sounds kind of, like, odd
because we're talking about faith, but
knowing how to answer them when they would
say like "the Bible says this", you know?
And I had like tools where I could say
"actually, you know what's really
interesting about that piece of the Bible,
is like this part of translation, or this
part where it says all these other
things that we don't abide by
And there are some really
incredible movies and books that you can
read and offer to them too if they're at a
place where they're willing to, kind of,
open up and read some things, that I think
really open people eyes to different ideas
and different concepts. Because I think
people are afraid.
Yeah! And I think that, I can't say it
enough, that we have to be open to having
the conversation. It's not, you know like
we were just saying, right and wrong, we
can't come in being like "I know
everything, you have to agree with me"
It's a process for everybody and the thing
that I read over and over in the books
that I was just showing you, is like you
have to be open to giving them the time to
give you a response. There may be a
reaction, but give them the time to digest
the information, decide where they stand,
and be open to having the dialogue be
constant, because they're still learning.
Like a lot of the feedback that was in one
of the books, and I referred to it on my
coming out video if you're interested in
referencing, about talking to pastors or
preachers and, if they believe for or
against, asking them why, and being open
to talking about it and hearing why and
then giving your feedback and having a
conversation, not a fight, we don't have
to be aggressive. It's just part of coming
to, and realising what's important and
making it work. Yeah!
And it's like there's like a middle space,
I think that's where you're illustrating
beautifully, is that if you're here and
a family member is here, that there is
this space in between. They don't have to
come all the way to you; you don't have
to go all the way to them. You know, for
some families it may mean that they
respect you and that they, you know, will
meet the person that you're with, they
will start calling you by your name or
your pronouns, but maybe they still
struggle with some things, and that's OK.
Like, you can still have a loving
relationship and a respectful relationship
without having to, you know, make them
exactly like you are and believe exactly
like you are.
Yeah, because we all believe differently
in general in life, like whether it's
politically, religiously, lifestyle-wise,
there's a ton of things that we can
believe differently, but it's all
about coming together.
If the relationship's important
then it's worth working on to come to,
you know, a middle ground.
Absolutely. And also I want to kind of go
back to what you said about the first
reaction versus waiting for the moment of
talking about it or of continuing to talk
about it. We, our book,
This Is a Book For Parents of Gay Kids,
has a chapter on religion and throughout
the entire chapter, at no point do we say,
you know, this is correct and this is
wrong, or that you should change your
beliefs to accept your child. We never say
any of that, and as we say with coming out
in any situation, that time is so
important. Having patience with your
parents, or with your family members, is
so important because nobody knows what
they think right away. Nobody knows what
they think until they've been given the
space to be like "woah, this challenges my
beliefs, and I have to struggle through
that, but I'm OK with that. I want to go
through this struggle because I want to be
able to support you". So that struggle and
that dialogue is just so important. Yeah.
I had a conversation, Dannielle and I were
just away at this thing called A-Camp and
I had a really amazing conversation with
somebody who was struggling with their
parents and faith, and what they said to
me was, "I need more things for my parents
to read who are from people who come from
a deep faith place", because I think a lot
of times if your family is super religious
they're like "well this person
doesn't understand, right?" Like Dannielle
you can't write a thing about faith
because, right, and they want a priest
or a pastor. And so we have Broderick,
which Dannielle mentioned, and we're going
to start growing that on the
Parents Project, which is the website
that goes along with the book,
but I think finding that, looking
online and finding people who are faith
based - Believe Out Loud, isn't that the
name of the organisation? - yeah we've
done some work with them and they have
really great pieces that are from the
religious perspective, so it's less
threatening to family members and things
like that.
And it may use the wordage they're used to
and totally get on board with it. And also
all the links we were talking about are
below so if you're interested, you can
find more information, because the more we
share, the better we all are.
Thank you so much for being on and just
having an honest discussion about this
and hopefully we'll do more in the future.
Yeah, and thank you for having us!
And click here to go over and watch the
video we did on their channel, because
you don't want to miss that either because
it's just as awesome.
And click here to subscribe!
Thank you very much! Bye!
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