Coming Out With Faith, Tuesday, 8:30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand.
On February 29, 200 groups and floats will roll down Oxford Street in Sydney – one of the biggest celebrations of LGBTQI+ pride in the world.
But it’s not always easy to be out and proud – especially for those who come from a faith based family or community. On Insight's episode, Coming Out With Faith, guests tell host Jenny Brockie how they spent years – even decades – trying to “pray the gay away.”
“I knew within the Christian church that there was no place for me – for anyone – to be homosexual, gay or transgender, anything like that,” former Pentecostal preacher Anthony Venn-Brown says.
“The only option that you had was to be heterosexual, because this is what God wanted. So you tried everything to reject who you were to conform to what the church wanted.”
And Anthony did try – everything from speaking to church leaders, to a stint in a residential program, to weeks of exorcisms intended to rid him of “an evil demonic force” and turn him straight.
It’s like a funeral because every hope, every dream, everything that you ever wanted dies … I felt like I was at a funeral, but I was the corpse.
After 22 years of fighting his own feelings, Anthony came out in a public confession in front of about 800 people, resigning from the ministry and asking for their forgiveness. He describes that day as the darkest of his life.
“It’s like a funeral because every hope, every dream, everything that you ever wanted dies … I felt like I was at a funeral, but I was the corpse.”
Former Christian pastor Andre Afamasaga also tried “everything” to be straight, after he learned about ministries that claimed to have helped people “successfully achieve heterosexuality.”
He tells Jenny Brockie he was searching for a “cure” – but he never found one, despite attending numerous conferences and retreats, and reading every book on the topic he could find.
Andre is still religious and attends church every week, but since accepting himself as a gay man, he’s more critical of the church’s position on homosexuality.
“They’ve really got to recognise the harm that they do … and they need to take responsibility for that,” he says.
Numerous guests told Insight about the lengths their faith pushed them to in order to resist or change their sexuality. As the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras kicks off, Insight asks what it’s like to come out and embrace your sexuality when you grew up in a religion that prohibits it.
Anthony Venn-Brown's organisation, Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International (ABBI) seeks to create understanding, acceptance and equality for LGBTI people with religious organisations and leaders. Support and resources are available through their website.
