We Built This City

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hella, Black Hella Queer, Hello Christian is a production of
iHeart podcast on the Outspoken Network, which seeks to amplify
LGBTQ voices in podcasting. Show me how good is going
to get today? God, dear Universe, you have permission to
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being

(00:24):
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and
I have everything I need. Something amazing is going to
happen for me today. Show me how good is going
to get today. God, dear Universe, you have permission to

(00:44):
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and
I have everything I need. Something amazing is happening for
me today. Show me how good is going to get today? God,
dear Universe, you have permission to amaze me today. I

(01:08):
am a beautiful and blessed being who deserves great things always.
I love my life and I am thankful for my life.
I am safe and I have everything I need. Something
amazing is going to happen for me today. Show me
how good is going to get today? God, dear Universe,
you have permission to amaze me today. I am a

(01:30):
beautiful and blessed being who deserves great things always. I
love my life and I am thankful for my life.
I am safe, and I have everything I need. Something
amazing is happening for me today. Well, friends, you are

(02:00):
here for another episode of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian,
a fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcasts
around society, culture and other fresh fried nigga shit I
feel like talking about with my dope ass friends. And
I am your host, Joseph Freese pronounced they them, and

(02:22):
I am so glad to have you with me for
another week. I really appreciate the support, and hopefully you're
liking your commenting, you're sharing, your subscribing, and you're letting
your friends, your enemies, your frenemies, everybody know about this
show so we can keep this thing going. So we
got a lot of ground to cover this week, and

(02:42):
I got a room full of preachers, So we're gonna
fall go church announcements, and we are going to have
our visitors introduce themselves, just share a little bit about themselves,
share their pronouns, and then share as an icebreaker, share
your childhood church and pastor, and then share whatever current
faith affiliations you may have. And if you don't have any,

(03:05):
that's okay.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Hello. My name is Brandon Thomas Crowley and I used
the HE series He him his. My home church is
the Lovejoy Baptist Church in Rome, Georgia, where the Reverend
Carrie Nathaniel Ingram was our pastor. And I am presently

(03:31):
the senior pastor of the Myrtle Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts,
a small suburban town right outside of Boston, about ten
minutes from the city, and I've been serving there for
sixteen years as their pastor. I didn't start as a

(03:51):
youth pastor. I started this sixteen years ago, right into
the frying pan, so I'm happy to still be there.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
My name is Tony McNeil.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
I bring you greetings from Atlanta, Georgia, and I subscribe
to him his pronouns. My hometown church is the Oak
Grove am Me Zion Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Church in Irwin, North Carolina E R w N.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
And my hometown pastor or the pastor that I grew
up under as the late Reverend.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Doctor Norman L. Stroud.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Reverend Stroud was my hometown pastor, and I am delighted
to be here.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
Good evening.

Speaker 6 (04:39):
My name is Sean Torres Anderson. I am a middle
school English and Social studies teacher in North New Jersey.
I also served as the executive minister at Saint Luke
Amme Church in Harlem, New York, my childhood church. I'm
not going to talk about them, but my home church,

(05:00):
which is different than my childhood church, is the First
Nazareth Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, where my pastor
is the Reverend doctor Blake Lee and Scott, and I've
been a member there since I've been an undergrad students
for almost fifteen to twenty years.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Thank you all. And then I would be remiss if
I did not shout out the church of my origin,
Memorial Presbyterian Church, one eighty nine Babylon Turnpike, Roosevelt, New
York one one five seventy five, where the Reverend Doctor
Reginald L. Tuggle was my pastor during my childhood and

(05:39):
then currently I am a member, have been a member
since twenty thirteen. So this past March May twelve years
where I have been a member of the Alfred Street
Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, where the Reverend doctor Howard
John Leslie is my pastor. So the ice has been broken.

(06:04):
We can now get into this rich episode, an episode
I didn't know if I wanted to do. I mean,
the show is Hella Black, Hella queer, Hello Christian, I
am black and queer. I wasn't necessarily sure if I
wanted to do such an on the nose episode like this,

(06:26):
but I do think it's important, because I do think
it is important that we and this is not to
take away from those who serve in the music ministry,
but to really celebrate the contributions and the legacy of black, queer, gay,
bisexual men within the Black Church and what we have added,

(06:50):
because I've just always believed there would be no Black
Church if it were not for us. And I was
trying to figure out what I would name this episode,
and I figured I would name it we Built this City.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
That's my little eighties rock nerd coming out, because you
know that's a pop song by Jefferson Starship. But I
felt it was apropos. And then this morning I was
reading a devotion shout out to Brian G. Murphy and
Father shinning to currents. Over at the Queer Theology podcast,

(07:24):
they created a wonderful devotional called Queer's the Word and
it is a forty day devotional that aims to put
Christian Scripture within an LGBTQ affirming lens and also sent
to scripture in the LGBTQ experience and centers the LGBTQ

(07:45):
experience within scripture. And you know, I was having my
morning prayer and the scripture that they used today was
First Peter chapter two, Versus seven through ten. Now to
you who believe, this stone is precious, but to those
who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has

(08:08):
become the corner stone, and a stone that causes people
to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. They
stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what
they were destined for. But you are a chosen people,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession that

(08:33):
you may declare the praises of Him who called you
out of darkness into their wonderful light. Once you were
not a people but now you are the people of God.
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have
received mercy. And of course you know, they just go
on to have a devotion to share, like just a

(08:53):
devotional message. But it just hit me so because if
anybody knows about being stones that the builders rejected, if
anybody in here knows about being stones that the institution
looks over and turns away, I would say that it's
black LGBTQ people and black queer men especially, but we

(09:14):
all yet a royal priesthood and a holy nation, despite
how some within the institution still struggle to understand that.
So just and you know, I just left that devotion
like God, you really did that for me today. You
did that for me because you knew I was getting
ready to have this subject. So just thank the Holy

(09:35):
Spirit for that confirmation this morning. So I do want
to ask my first question, what was your formational teachings
around homosexuality and Christianity from your faith community? But then
who were the queer men you saw growing up, the
black queer men, the Christian queer men, and the black

(09:57):
queer Christian men in question.

Speaker 6 (10:00):
When I read it initially, I kind of trembled a
bit because my foundational teaching around homosexuality and same gender
loving men was not a positive one. It was one
that kind of condemned and deemed me to be held
bound for the rest of my life, which is why

(10:23):
the question in the icebreak around your childhood church and
your home church. There's often tension with me, especially when
I'm talking about my childhood church, the church that I
was raised in Philadelphia, which was a non denominational a
church where it was a small family storefront church. And

(10:44):
this is not to create a overarching narrative of all
storefront churches, but this particular storefront church was one that
was very hostile towards queer folks, and often the theology
in the church was pointed directly at me. I remember

(11:04):
going to a My aunt and uncle are the youth
pastors at this church, and they had an appreciation service,
and the pastor looked me square in my eye as
he was preaching and was like David and Jonathan, they
weren't together. He didn't bend him or break him down

(11:24):
like a shotgun, looking me directly in my eyes right.
And I remember falling asleep doing this service, and I
was grown. I was already out of seminary at this point,
and it just went back to celebrate my aunt and uncle.
And I remember him telling my cousin in the middle
of his sermon to wake me up so that I
could hear this message.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
And this was of.

Speaker 6 (11:47):
Course after my grandparents, my grandfather had died in him
having a conversation with me around like going to seminary
and learning and what my my concentration wasn't seminary. And
then a few months later, maybe a few weeks later,
excuse me, him having this conversation with me in the

(12:08):
middle of a sermon, and I responded and it wasn't pretty,
but that was what my foundational teachings were.

Speaker 5 (12:16):
I remember.

Speaker 6 (12:18):
This very distinct conversation of them telling me that my
punishment for a queer sexuality would be that God would
inflict me with HIV. Right, And this isn't a message
that is unfamiliar to black queer folks. I mean this
comes from a history of misinterpretation of religious and biblical
texts and then just a regurgitation of that type of

(12:43):
venom within black queer spaces, especially where we're thinking about
where that actual language came from. Jerry Fallwell and all
of those folks perpetuate that type of theology, and black
folks adopt that language. Some black folks adopt that language,
and it finds itself in our churches. And that was
what my foundational teachings around homosexuality was that I personally

(13:09):
would be living with HIV because of me loving who
I want to love, and that I would be sent
to hell because of that type of expression of love.
And if I'm being honest, there were no models of
black queer men or black queer love that I could
remember in my formative years. I do remember some of

(13:33):
my teachers, and I had very few male teachers, some
of them being same gender loving, but none of them
were black. And if I could think deeper into like
who was members of our church, it was a family church.
There were three large families in this particular church, one
being mine, one being our pastor's family, and then another

(13:55):
family that was connected to my family. And out of those,
I can't remember any of them being black and queer.
But when I'm looking into the community, I do remember
black queer men being there, but too old for me
to hang around or things of that nature. But I
was able to glean from them from a distance, and

(14:18):
some of that shaped who I am and how I
show up in the world today.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
So I guess that's the answer to my he is
And he was a.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Rich answer, and I thank you for it.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yes, So thank you so much, Sean for sharing. So
my upbringing was much like I think many of the
black queer males who are identifying as Christian will say.
My home church believe that homosexuality was a sin. My

(14:49):
pastor preached about it, and my family it had a
very interesting habit of loving fiercely the queer people in
our family, but saying a man on Sunday morning, when
the pastor said something negative about gay people, it.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Was like.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
That that old trope, you know, don't you're not gonna
touch my cissies, but you know, I don't care what
you do to the other sissies, you know. And I'm
using that language in the way that honestly, some of
my uncles and cousins actually said it, thinking that they
were being welcoming and affirming in some sort of way

(15:40):
by thinking of me as the exception, while not realizing
that what they're really when I hear that, what I
hear is a replay of what the kids told me
at my middle school, or you're not like the other
black people, you talk proper, or you know, YadA YadA, YadA,
And it was all of this coded racist language that

(16:05):
really had to do, honestly with respectability politics that I
didn't even know that I was bought into. I was
just doing what my grandparents told me to do because
I was a good little boy. And so that same
thing I saw and heard quite often around queerness in
my family and might I also turned out to talk

(16:28):
about the queer persons who have shaped my life then,
who shaped my life then, and who have shaped what
I am now. So I want to just tweak it
just a little bit, Joseph, if I can and say
that initially for me, it was black lesbians. And let

(16:49):
me say that as I go into this conversation, all
of the persons that I am about to name, I
am going to change those names because the politics of
being out for me as a millennial, means something completely
different to the baby boomers that shaped me, who quite frankly,

(17:15):
because I begin with the black lesbians in my life
who are baby boomers and who are still alive, they
don't like the word queer they can't stand it. And
so I come into this almost with a strong feminist

(17:37):
Belle Hooks Audrey Lord sort of introduction. My aunts. I
had two sets of aunts that were lesbians that our
lesbians have been in relationships, in their relationships since they
were nineteen years old in college. You know, it's the

(18:01):
running joke is it's the gay me and can't stick together,
but them Lisbeths, they're gonna stay together forever. And so
these women, you know, when I came out initially to
my family, they did things like they took me to
the Castro District and told me about the Castro and

(18:24):
Harvey Milk, and then took me to the village and
told me about the Harlem Renaissance and the queer history there,
and then took me to Pee Town. I've had a
very different experience because these black women were like, Okay,
we know they're gonna come for this boy in a
way they didn't come for us. So we're going to

(18:45):
pump him up with the fact that there is another
way of looking at this, even though you're choosing to
be in the church. And so it's that piece. Then
the other thing, I was a choir boy, proud choir boy.
And I was also the church organist when I was
in high school, and so I was in the whole

(19:08):
music scene. And although you know, there were times when
you know they may have said something, you know, you know,
being a little flirtatious, I never had an experience of
where somebody didn't since when I didn't want to continue
going on that past and that experience. So I befriended

(19:29):
a lot of the older queer men who were by
all intent and phrases in our culture now would consider
to be in the closet by a lot of us.
But like I said, I'm very sensitive about that because
they taught me. They introduced me to a world within
the world, because there was another circle. There was another

(19:52):
circle over card games at night where we would hang
out together, and there was this there was this language
that I learned, like what a judy was, and you know,
with all of this stuff, it was a whole nother
world that I was exposed to. And and and it
breaks my heart when I hear in a lot of

(20:14):
church contexts people talking about the gay sort of culture
or even the hookup culture in a mispirching way, because
that was for me, that was that was a part
of where I went, not not to have sex with everybody,
which I'm not shunning that, but just to be in

(20:36):
the space where people were kicking in and reading and
having a good time and talking in language that you
only know when you're in the community. And let me
also say, there was something. And I'm not old. I'm
only forty, so you know, I'm I'm I'm a y
n I still like to claim that hahna na aa, yaha,

(20:58):
yah ha, but I am old enough, like dill up internet,
pre cell phone, old enough to remember just how thick.
And I don't mean to paint it in an absolute
nostalgic way, because I know that a lot of the

(21:20):
people who are actually older than me will be like, Okay,
this girl is just carrying. But what I'm saying is
there was something precious about before gay marriage became legal,
you know, before this, before all of this out and
proud stuff. You know, before there was something sacred about
those brush harbors, if you will, that we had as

(21:43):
black gay men. And I appreciate you, Joseph for calling
this out because I have been guilty and been called
out by a lot of my dear friends. One of
them being Brenton Brock about being so apologetic about my
cis gender maleness in response to the critiques of womanism,

(22:06):
that I failed to realize that I'm not even included
in that cis gender maleness. That womanism is critiquing Income's work,
so I don't have to apologize for that, and I
can claim black queer maleness in a radical way. So
I just wanted to name all of that. Let me
stop before I start going on.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Toolaw, No, it's okay, and once again, thank you. Like
I said, ain't none of y'all acted up too bad yet,
but I do have y'all on time and such. Like
I said, I know, I know, I'm on here with
two Baptist preachers and Brandon, I'm going to hold your
hand gently into spirits. Yes, as those who also recently
just turned forty. All right, yes, honey, we're aunties now.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh, And I'm trying to figure that out because these
babies keep coming to me asking me and calling me that,
and I'm like, no, I'm a friend. They're like, no,
you're forty.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
So we're in this real space because I mean, yes,
we're Yes, we interact with a lot of people that
can still call us babies. But for me to say
I'm forty, for me, it just holds a weight.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
It does.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
It just holds it just it holds a It just
holds a weight. That's just different.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Y'all can have that weight.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I'm thirty four.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Because you still got more than half of your thirties left.
So no, you shouldn't necessarily feel that way.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
But but, but, but but but we have an uncle,
a real tried and true uncle in the room. My uncle. Yes,
he that's that's what you call a real uncle. I'm
trying to live up to that.

Speaker 5 (23:38):
Even though I'm his first nephew. But go ahead, we'll
let you.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
We just love him.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
Yeah, And I do have to give Sean his his props.
He was the very first one to give me the
title of uncle. He and Candace Simpson.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yep, they're they're the oldest in my tribe.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
But Joseph, thank you so much for this conversation. This
question sends me back to the deep woods of Harnett County,
North Carolina, at Oak Grove and Design Church, where I
was raised. My love for church music and worship was

(24:19):
nurtured at Oak Grove. Our pastor Reverend Stroud was seminary trained.
I did not know that until much later. That's what
it was, because I remember when I was in maybe the.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Seventh or eighth grade.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
He received his MDV while pastoring at at at Oak
Grove and we had a huge ceremony where his professors
from Hood Seminary and Salisbury I think he was at
Hood where they came to the church and we had
a worship service. My mom was the president of the
Pastor's Aide committee and they did a special service to

(25:01):
honor his graduation. Reverend Stroud never preached about homosexuality. I never,
I can't. I can't recall a sermon of him ever
saying anything about it.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
It was not until.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
A guest preacher or a guest revivalist would come.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Don't always be the guest revivalists that want to come
and cut up.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
It would always be when a guest preacher would come in,
especially if it was somebody from like the Church of
God in Christ, or the Church of God of Prophecy,
or some Apostolic church or you know those what I
call those holy Roller religions denominations. They would come and

(25:48):
when they would want to get a rise out of
the congregation.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
They would bring that up and it would work every time.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
And I remember feeling pains in my side, I mean
like physical angst and physical uh hurt in my body
when they would say those things, because I knew they
were talking about me. Even though they weren't saying talking
about me directly, I knew they were talking about me.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Because I knew at a very young age.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
I would say, I remember, as old as four, I
didn't know what to call it, but I knew I
was different. And uh that's when, you know, that's when
I would hear.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
It in you know, in in in in the context
of corporate worship at home.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Very much like what my nephew Brandon and nephew Sean
have have eluded. There was this uh dichotomy uh that
existed in my family as well, where there were known
gay folks who were on my stepdad's side and my
mom's side that the family knew was was and they

(27:02):
used the F word back then when I grew up,
that was the word queer was not even in the lexicon.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Uh. They used punk and then the F word. Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
But you know, and they would talk about these people
when they would leave the room but when they were present,
they gave them somewhat of a modicum of respect, and
you know, not unless they were yelling at them or uh,
you know, having an argument with them, and then they
would leverage that against them in the argument, of course.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
But I grew up.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Hearing grown folks talk about other queer folks when they
would leave the room and uh, and you know felt like, yeah,
you're talking to me too, And you know, when those
queer folks would walk back into the room, it was
like nothing happened. But you know, being queer, being gay,

(27:57):
being a you know, a bull dagger is what they
used to say about the women. They didn't It was
not until I was in college did I hear the
word lesbian.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
So my family used that language.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Now I heard lesbo growing up.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
I didn't even hear that.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
But yeah, so that there were even women, yeah, that
were in our community that that we knew that we're
same gender loving, But you know, it was not it
was not approved, and every time anybody had a chance
to say anything about it, uh or condemn people, the
hell they did.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
But I do have to.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
Thank or honor doctor Reverend in Elstraw, the late Reverend
in Austriwe for the courageous way that he governed and
taught and preached. And I would say now that he
was a justice preacher back then in a sense.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
But but yeah, man, this.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
This whole uh notion of how family would would view
it a resulted in me not naming that about me
for quite a while because I was feared.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
I feared not being loved, I feared being ostracized. Even
though you know, when I would walk into a room,
the people who.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
Were queer, who I know were queer now that I
didn't know back then, could see the queerness in me.
You know, other queer people know queer people without them
even having to say it. But it would amaze me
how sometimes, you know, when I would walk into a room,
there would be some guys that would say, you know,
look at me and say, oh, that little boy got

(29:43):
some sugar in this tank?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
How did how can you? How did you know that?

Speaker 7 (29:51):
You know?

Speaker 3 (29:53):
So I was. I was very fascinated by that. I
will also say there.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
Was one man that came out of Oak Grove Amys
Iron Church who lived in Philadelphia, and he would come
home every third Sunday in August for homecoming.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
His name was Dennis McNeil.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Dennis was a train organist and he played pipe organ
at some church in Philadelphia, and I can't think of
the name of it.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
But he was queer. Dennis was gay. It was known
gay that he was a gay man. He was an
older gay man.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
But he would come home in his queerness and he
would sit at the organ at Oak Grove am Design
Church and where the church out on homecoming Sunday. And
so when it was when I was in high school,
when Dennis would come home, my mom would ask him
to like pick me up and take me to McDonald's.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
And talk to me.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
And like mentor me, and she would she would ask
him to ask me questions about, you know, is anybody
touching you? You know, while I was you know, having
hamburgers and you know, just talking music. I was there
to talk music, but he was there to find out
if anybody had touched me, my god, and he was

(31:15):
taking that report back to my mom my God. And
you know, he would say it in a very creative
and loving way.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I wasn't threatened by it, but I was like, what,
we're supposed to be here talking about hims and anthems,
and you know, that. He would be like, you know
how you're taking good.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Care of yourself, you know, and you know, does does
your pepe get hard sometimes?

Speaker 3 (31:42):
You know? I'm serious.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
We're in McDonald's and he was asking me that and
he was like, nobody's been touching you, have they now?

Speaker 3 (31:50):
If they have, tell me. I want to make sure
that you're okay.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
And he would affirm me and he was like, it's
okay to be who you are.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
And I was like, dude, how do you see me?

Speaker 2 (32:04):
You know?

Speaker 4 (32:05):
I thought I had this stuff hidden, But he and
my mom had a thing going on where every time
he would come home, she would say, you need to
make sure you go by and see Dennis.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Make sure you talk to it. So he was he
was a mentor, He was a light. He was a
source of encouragement, encouragement for me.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
And it was not until I was much older down
the road that I realized what was going on. So
in the midst of that, I was blessed to have
had those conversations and those uh that those words of
encouragement poured into me.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Uh in the way that he did.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Hey man, thank you for sharing that. And then is
Dennis still with us? Is he an ancestor.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
That he's not he's an ancestor.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Well, we speak your names there as blessed Memory. We're
going to pause for a second, but don't go too
far more of this conversation when we come back. So

(33:31):
going back to Memorial, because I said on the episode
that I had with Brand and Kyle, with Brand and
Kyle Goodman, I have never been afforded the privilege of
a closet. You could always see me coming from ten
miles away. I have always been unambiguously black. I have
always been clearly queer. And I think about that quote

(33:54):
from Miss Sophia in the Color Purple, A girl child
ain't safe in a house full men, And Memorial was
dangerously neutral because I can't say I remember hearing sermons
from the pulpit, but I definitely remember being looked at
as one of the gifted kids. But I was too feminine,

(34:17):
and this was something that needed to be fixed, and
I needed to be fixed, and I was really forced
to become a part of the manhood training program. This
is the early nineties. This is the height of kind
of like that late eighties early nineties wave of afrocentricity

(34:37):
that we particularly started to see in our black churches.
So the manhood training program at my church was kind
of like this Rites of Passage program, And of course
I got lifted up as one of the gifted students,
and I even got an award for Student of the
Year like two times in a row from them. But
at the same time, I was being told that I

(35:00):
was not one hundred percent fully okay. And I remember
one of the sessions on Saturday morning, and I used
to dread having to get up and go to these
things on Saturday morning. But I was a child and
I was forced to. And even though I dreaded it,
my mother was doing it because my father wasn't in
the home and I was being raised in this house

(35:22):
full of women, and she and my grandmother as prominent
women within the church for getting all these messages about
me growing up in a house full of women. So
I was forced to attend this manhood training program that
I just dreaded and I hated. And I remember one Saturday,
and at most I was ten years old when this happened,

(35:43):
but I was definitely a child, and it felt like
it went on for hours. But I became the subject
of conversation both from the leadership and from my peers
and me and my femininity and my proposed queerness just

(36:08):
became this topic of discussion. And I'm there as this
child in this room full of older boys and men,
and I have to be the adult in the room,
and I just kind of have to sit there and
take it and ride it out until it passes over.

(36:29):
So that kind of really encapsulates, kind of like my
formation around homosexuality in Christianity and even gender in Christianity.
But there was one man that I do need to
lift up. He wasn't out at the time, but you know,
we've lifted up our friends, Candice Simpson, we lifted up Brandon.
You mentioned Brenton Brock, which is who is a friend

(36:51):
of mine and recently recorded an episode with him week
before last around HBCUs. But the friend that but the
friend that I want to bring into the chat, your
frat brother, Tony, doctor Michael Elng. He was not out

(37:12):
at the time, but through this college prep program where
they assigned us mentors, it was called one on one,
he became one of my mentors and through him, he
took me to see the preacher's wife and we would
sit and we would talk about Diana Roys as opposed

(37:32):
to Patty LaBelle. And I remember going over to his
house one time and seeing Jennifer Holiday records, and in
him I saw myself And then years later we were
able to reconnect. I was a teenager getting ready to
go to college, and you know he was older, but

(37:54):
you know he had since went to seminary and he
has since done the work he needed to do to
come out and really stand as this black gay man.
And he is one of those treasured friendships that I'm
so glad that came back around for me to where
you know, he is still that mentor and he is
still that uncle for me in my life. So I

(38:16):
want to move quickly and I want to shift gears. Here.
My next question, and it's a two parter. What has
your experience been within the LGBTQ community at large and
the black LGBTQ community as someone who is black, queer

(38:40):
and Christian, and particularly what has social life? What is
friendships and what is dating look like for you?

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Woo wie.

Speaker 5 (38:49):
That is a have you question one. I am.

Speaker 6 (38:53):
I'm not old, but I'm old enough where I just
like being at home, like right now, I like being
in the house. I lay here, watch Netflix, chill, could
order out all of that stuff.

Speaker 5 (39:08):
I like being in the house.

Speaker 6 (39:10):
That's not to say that I've not been a part
of the larger black queer community, because I have. You know,
I've done all of that, the circuit parties, the other
types of parties, uh, the clubs, the trappy hours, the
New Beach like, I've done all of that. Do I
still participate now here and there. But what life is

(39:33):
for me now, I'm literally just in the house. However,
when I grew up in the church, in the particular
this type of church where anything outside of church was
just demonized. We couldn't do anything. We couldn't We couldn't
listen to secular music. We couldn't play uh, board games

(39:56):
or card games in the house. We couldn't watch certain
tea shows. That's just how my grandparents raised us. Like
shows like Cat Dog. We couldn't watch cat Dog because
my grandfather was like, oh a dog in a cat camp, Okay.
We couldn't play cards, pity pattern, none of that. That's
literally what our lives was. When I went to college,

(40:17):
I went to South Carolina from Philadelphia, South Carolina for
undergrad and it wasn't until after I graduated from undergrad
that I actually started listening to secular music or going
to the part parties. I didn't have my first drink
until after I graduated undergrad. I didn't smoke for the
first time to after I graduated from undergrad because those

(40:39):
bonds or those holes were still those change was still
excuse me, tied to me for a very long time.
So when I got to Seminary and I became to
get freer in who I was, I was able to
experience what black queer life was in New York City
because I went to Union the Logical Seminary. Shout out

(41:01):
to Michael Ilam who also was a Union grad, and
Candice Sepson who was also a Union grad. It wasn't
until I was able to connect with other black queer
folks in Seminary then we were able to go out
and enjoy ourselves and have fun. Every Thursday night we
would go to Trappy Hour, which was hosted by Leon

(41:22):
at one hundred and forty fifth and right across the
street from Abbasity and Baptist Church, literally that you know
Harlem Knights right there. Then we would go across the
street to this bar, and then we would go around
the corner to this thing, and we would go down
the street to this thing. It was beautiful when I
had the opportunity to experience it. Dating life like I
got married, and then I got separated, and then I

(41:44):
got back with my husband, and then I got separated again,
and then in between that I was dating a few niggas,
and then after that I was back with my husband. Like,
dating has just been a tunnel of ups and downs
for me. I'm currently I am not dating anyone. I
still wear my wedding band because I'm technically still married.
But you know, you know how things happen here and there,

(42:05):
especially for me, But that's it. I enjoy my experience
since that I've had in the black queer community, in
the queer community at large. But now at the age
that I am, I just like being in the house.
I'll go to the beach once a week by myself,
hang out and meet people there, come back home and

(42:28):
then go to work and then do all that stuff
over again. But nothing too fancy.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Now. It very much gives weekend girl, because I only
work on the weekdays. Shout out to Shout out to
the SOS band.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
Something like a weekend girl like.

Speaker 6 (42:47):
So last week I went to the beach on a Friday,
so I teach summer school.

Speaker 5 (42:50):
So we get off at one and at one o'clock
I'm in my car going down to Gunnisen.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
Beach, which is the new beach in New Jersey, and
I'm there until nine ten o'clock at night. Then I
on that home, rest on Saturday, get ready for church
on Sunday, and then do it all over again.

Speaker 5 (43:05):
So this week, we're going to the beach on Wednesday,
So it just depends.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
On Okay, Brandon.

Speaker 8 (43:11):
Yeah, So so I will preface what I'm about to
say by saying that, you know, I realize that I
am young and of a particular generation, and so I
am standing on the.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Shoulders and backs of so many black queer males. But
I have loved the experiences that I have had in
the black gay community. I want to start there and

(43:51):
then I'll talk about the broader one, because the broader
one I have some reading to do. But the black
gay community for me has been one of it's It's
how I discovered myself in these close connections. You know,

(44:12):
I know we often and I think it's because we
are rightfully, you know, we've we've been oppressed by being
forced to suppress our sexualities. But there's another side of
the black gay community, black gay male community, outside of

(44:35):
the powerful, you know, sort of relationships that deal with
sex and romance, and that's the deep friendships, Like oh
my god, I just I mean, I get very emotional
when I think about my friends because in many ways,

(44:55):
and I know we're recording this, so I can't say
keep this secret, So it is what it is.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
I'm gonna say.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
In many ways, my friends like I'm closer to in
a lot of ways in a lot of my family
because they were the ones that were there for me
when I was really trying to figure all of this
stuff out. And I'm not saying that I got it
all figured out right now, because I don't, but I
am saying that I'm in a different place than I

(45:22):
was when I was seventeen. And my friends that are
my judies, like we've been together since freshman year or
when we were high school seniors, you know, going to
do these college tours and things and meeting each other
and so you know, these friendships have outlasted every relationship

(45:44):
I have ever had, and will outlast my marriage because
I've known you know them for longer. So I just
want to talk about that that network right there, because
you know, I think that sometimes, you know, we even

(46:07):
buy into the same trope of downing our community talking
about all these queens aint YadA ya yahd yad YadA.
But it's like, I think we look past them meaningful relationships,
like those close friends that are really closer than a brother,
and there's a deep intimacy there. And let me say

(46:30):
this this way, in an Audrey Lord expression that you'll
only get if you're in the community, it's it's also erotic,
but I don't mean that in the pornographic way. I
mean it in the way that Audreue Lord talks about
the erotic as being a life giving territory in terrain

(46:52):
where life happens. And so yeah, that's what I'll say
about the black gay community. I'll also say that, just
like in the Black Church, we have our own vernacular,
our own language, our own traditions that I am so
proud to know to be a part of. Like I

(47:14):
love being black all the way, I also love being
a black gay male, a black queer male because of
the language that we've produced largely coming out of the
ballroom scene. And I'm also seeing us as all being one,

(47:36):
even though the experience of being transgender is different. I
think that when you're talking about the the cultivation of language, etymology,
and its historical context in black queer vernacular, I think
you have to see it all as being a part
of the ecology that produced you know, these concepts of
reading in shade. And I mean it's like, it's so

(47:59):
funny because it's like my dad, who has evolved in
this affirmation thing, you know, but you know he's a
stereotypical megasciphi, hypermasculine, you know, just all of these sorts
of things. Who was like, uh, we were on vacation.

(48:24):
He was like, oh, you're throwing shade and real bad.
And I was like wait a minute, hold on, like
what and he's and I was like, I know that,
I don't use I haven't used it, but like how
do you? And he's like, oh, man, you need to
know what's going on with the times. And I'm like,
do you know that that comes out of like a

(48:45):
queer context? And I explained the history of all that
and he was like, oh, that's cool. All right someone,
So he's like, you think he's gonna keep using it
because he's trying to be a super ally. But I
just say all that to say I think those are
the beautiful things that come out of our context. What
I will say about the broader context is that my
experience with the white community gay community is that they

(49:14):
only care about listen them, them, them, them, them children
like I am made to constantly feel like an object
and it's all about, uh, the the big black cock.

(49:36):
It's not even dick to them. And I'm like, you know,
when I was out there, I was like, oh, y'all,
don't don't call no no, no, no, no no. That's the
wrong word for that. That is not what that is called.
It is called something else. So you know, but it's
this obsession with the big black cock or you got
a fat ass. It's like it's the only thing. And

(50:00):
the other thing that I have a problem with is
that white gay male culture is centered around this caricature
of black, the black sasas woman caricature, and it pisses
me off, you know, And it's like, find somebody else
to be y'all's mascot for y'all stuff, not black women.

(50:23):
Don't do that over here, and don't come to me
trying to utilize and talk in that black woman type
of way, you know, trying to talk to me, come
and saying sister, ain't your sister?

Speaker 3 (50:33):
No?

Speaker 1 (50:35):
And you are not a black woman trapped in a
white gay man yes.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
And I feel like a lot of these white gay
men they love to act into like the Housewives of
Atlanta sort of trope, and it really bothers me. And
then let me also say that a lot of these
white gay men voted for Trump and being in these
circles with these donors. The other thing I say is

(51:00):
that a lot of these white gay men and the
Democratic Party. I'm about to shoot myself in the foot now,
but I don't care because I ain't scared a lot
of these white gay men and the Democratic Party. The
season of reckoning is coming because they are hooking black,
young black gay men to math and having orgies with
them when they are in sedated states. And this has

(51:23):
happened to six of my friends who are now roaming
the streets, you know, trying to put their lives back together.
And so it happens in the South End with all
of these wealthy white men who live white gay men
who live over in the South End, who are constantly
drugging up these vulnerable black males for their own enjoyment,

(51:48):
and then they talk in a very besmirching way about
women's genitalia. They are the epitome of racism and sexism,
and I ain't formed. I'm sorry. White gay men got
a whole lot to prove to me, because as far
as I am concerned, everything that I have experience has
taught me that they are who I need to be fearing.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
And then, Tony, before I let you come in, I
wanted to say something real quick around that, because I've
always had this theory that white gay men being gay
is the only thing that keeps them from being completely
and totally depraved, and having that experience with persecution because

(52:32):
of their sexuality is the only thing that keeps a
lot of these white gay men from being complete monsters.
Because I've just and I've always had to see And
it's not that I don't believe in gay rights, because
as a gay person, I absolutely do believe in gay rights.
Before a lot of these white gay men that push

(52:52):
themselves to the front and take up a lot of
space at the expense of everybody else. Their fight for
gay rights isn't because of the validity or the goodness
of gay rights. It's about the fact that they can't
believe that, as a white man, that there is something

(53:13):
that could trump their whiteness and keep them from having
complete and unlimited access to pout. So that was my
little soap box moment. But Uncle Tony, come on in
and share what you will.

Speaker 4 (53:31):
Well, I talking about community and connection as a black
gay man.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
My first.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Encounter with meaningful community was in high I was in college.
Excuse me, was in college in the gospel choir. The
gospel choir at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina,
in the mountains was the safe hay even for black
culture on app State's campus.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
And at that.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Time there were god ten thousand students on the campus,
and out of the ten thousand, one thousand was black.
Maybe one thousand out of the ten thousand was black,
and a hundred of that thousand was in the gospel choir,

(54:25):
and the majority of the tenor section, the majority of
the tenor section or same gender loving men. And it
would be the meetings after the meetings of us going
to somebody's dorm room and all of us converging in there,
and that was sanctuary for us.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
Or we would go to the pizza parlor right next.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Door to the School of Music where we rehearse, and
we would get a table and we would all sit
there in kiki and.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Re rehearse rehearsal, you know where.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Stuff happened and did you see so and so, And
we would mock the altos and the soloists that would
have been featured in that rehearsal. But those folks are
some of my best friends still today. And that was
back in nineteen ninety ninety one, ninety two, ninety three, ninety.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Four when I was there. It was with that group
of folks.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
We would hop in our cars, those of us that
had cars, and we would drive to Charlotte because that
was the next biggest city from Boone. It was about
Charlotte was like two hours. We would drive to Charlotte
on Friday nights and sometime on Saturday nights to go
to the gay club in Charlotte and we would enjoy

(55:48):
drag shows together. And then eventually, after going so much,
several of our folks from our cohort is what I
call it or our family. They got on stage and
and and and started to perform and and some of
them are still drag queens to this day. But they

(56:08):
got their start with us going to to the.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Club in Charlotte. And so that's where I grew.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Where I grew to, uh, to know what it means
to have a gay family above your natural family.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
When I didn't have, one of them would would take
care of me.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
You know, if after the club we went to waffle
house or McDonald's or whatever, and if I didn't have it,
my gay brother or gay sister would say, you know, Tony,
I'm gonna get your happy meal, uh or your your
big mac meal this time.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Uh. That's where I learned community was with those core
group of folks.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Black gay communities have been mutual aid before we knew
what mutual aid.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
Was, absolutely absolutely and that's where I I fell it,
in those little small ways, like you know, going into
McDonald's and not having the five dollars to get that
that combo and.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
And being honest and being able to be honest.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
About it, like I ain't got it, but I'm hungry,
you know. And then when we got back to campus,
I swiped my meal card for you because you got
me McDonald's while we were in Charlotte.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
That's where I learned learned how to what it means to.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Take care of family, to take care of yourself, and
take care of others in community.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
But in terms of me, uh and my.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
How I navigate the larger black community and larger gay community,
I am uh now and I haven't always been in
this space. Uh, just coming to uh be comfortable with
not shrinking myself when I walk into because growing up

(58:01):
it was such a natural response for me to shut
my gayness down as much as I could visibly and
and and mentally and spiritually. But now it's it's a
non factor for me, you know, if anything, I turn
it up. Hey, and and and I'm very unapologetic about

(58:27):
how I show up uh, and I don't leave one
without the other.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
They are inextricably.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
Bound together, regardless of who I'm with and where I am.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
And so that's where where I'll stop.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yep, thank you so much. I really want to piggyback
around the community. And how if we don't have anybody else,
we have ourselves Because me, Sean and Candice we have
a group chat that that that will pop. Usually I'll
popping if I have something I need to get off
my chest, and Sean and Candice they'll be my sounding

(59:06):
board and we have a group chat and it will
be like a Reesa and Kenny from Jump to It
and one of us will popping and be like, girl,
did you see what happened last Sunday? And I'll be like, yeah, girl,
I saw, And then you know, we'll kind of you
will kind of discuss. I will say, as someone who
identifies as Christian both within the black el both within

(59:28):
the larger black LGBTQ community, and then within the larger
LGBTQ community, I have experienced some derision. I definitely know
what it is like to be called a church queen.
I definitely know what it is like to have people
kind of see you kind of like just in this
like one dimensional way, and it's kind of like in

(59:50):
the church they looking at you sideways and saying, how
can you be Christian and be gay? And then in
the gay world they're saying how can you be gay
and be a Christian? Or your intellect is automatically questioned,
or there's this automatic assumption that you're self loathing and

(01:00:10):
you hate yourself because you know you're still involved, you
still identify as Christian, and you're still involved in the church.
And this kind of leads into the next question because
I think a debate that I've had to deal with,
especially as I've searched out and joined faith communities for
myself as an adult, is kind of like this question

(01:00:31):
of the traditional church versus the open and affirming church.
And it's almost like it's so really the question of
how I want to post a question is like, for
you all, is there still a place for black gay
men within the traditional church or should we be making

(01:00:52):
these moves to open and affirming congregations. Some would say,
you know, it's you can stay in traditionalgations, but you
can't stay in traditional black congregations. You need to start
looking at United Church of Christ or the United Methodist Church,
or you know, the Episcopalian Church. But for you all,

(01:01:13):
have you heard these debates before? What do you feel
about these debates? And you know what would you say
the best way forward for like black queer Christians would
be just in your personal opinion.

Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
So one of the practices that I engage in before
joining any church is I find the pastor's email, and
I email the pastor and I say, hey, you and
I need to have a conversation prior to me joining
this church. And this is after like watching this was
specifically during COVID, after watching some of their live streams

(01:01:48):
being in their virtual sanctuary, and then deciding that this
is a space that I want to connect with having
a conversation with the pastor, like, hey, this is who
I am, this is who is thinking about joining your church.
Will I be safe there? I've done that a few times.

(01:02:09):
The last time I've done that it ended up being
a two hour conversation with the pastor, joined the church,
served at the church, and and to be honest, at
the end of the frosts at the end of my
time being there, it ended up not being a safe
space right for various reasons. But I think that is
an individual decision. I think if the traditional church is

(01:02:34):
for you, then that's for you.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
If a non traditional church is for you, that's for you.

Speaker 6 (01:02:38):
But what's for me most non negotiable is the church
has to be black, so like the not in Church
of Christ, United Methodist Church.

Speaker 5 (01:02:46):
Like those faith.

Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
Settings, though there is good in them that I personally
that's not something that's for me because there's just layer
types of oppression that exists within some of those contexts,
right homophobia on top of racism on top of like
all of that stuff, and that's just too much to

(01:03:10):
dig dig through. Not to say that some of those
aspects don't exist in the traditional Black church, but I'm
that's a familiar That's a beast that I'm familiar with, right,
a monster that I'm familiar with that I know how
to fight, and I have been fighting. And it's not
to say I'm I'm not tired of fighting. I am,

(01:03:30):
but it is a familiar territory. But for me, I
decide the traditional church because I like my worship black.
And if I'm being honest, I've had conversations and even
during seminary in my field educations. I've done my field
at at non traditional black queer churches of Firman churches,

(01:03:54):
and there were just some things there that I was
not comfortable with. And not because there was queer folks,
that's not the issue. It was just some of their
practices that I was not comfortable with, especially around equitable pay.
Some of these churches are grassroots organizations. They don't have

(01:04:17):
the funding that other churches have. And as a seminary
trade person who have a lot of debt, I need
somebody's gonna help pay his debt off right now. So
for me, I choose traditional churches because I love what
it still what it means to be in community with
all folks. And I appreciate sermon recently around that America

(01:04:40):
is burning, but not will not be consumed because there
are redeemable qualities, especially it's people within the borders of America.
And the same thing with the Black traditional church. Though
the Black traditional church is burning, it won't be consumed
because there are redeemable qualities. There are people within these
Black traditional spaces that calls the space to be redeemable.

(01:05:01):
And that's some of the work that I'm trying to do.
Though there is some hostility that exists within some of
these churches. That's the work that I'm really invested in.
How do we make these spaces all black churches are open,
they welcome everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
Now, does everybody have.

Speaker 6 (01:05:21):
The same level of access to all of these rights
and privileges that was promised to you when you became
a member. When you know during the right hand the fellowship.
That's the work that I'm interested in. How do we
make these churches accessible for all people. They're available, they're
open to all people, but how do we make those
rights and privileges accessible to all people. So that's the
work that I'm trying to do in black traditional spaces,

(01:05:45):
and I have been doing for quite some time. So
for me, it's the Black traditional church. For others, it
might not be the Black traditional church. And I think
that's part of the reason why I'm also a teacher,
because you know, I could to step away from the
church and go into the classroom and do a different
type of work within the classroom, not necessarily bridging the

(01:06:08):
classroom with the church, even though that happened, has been
happening naturally. But how do I make my classroom a
safe space for my black queer students, even though almost
ninety percent of them are black and queer. How do
I let them know that they can experience love in
this particular space, just because, just just because, just.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Because I want to respond to this question two different ways,
Because I think there is the church that is affirming,
open and affirming, that is a traditional Black church, but

(01:06:52):
it just may be open and affirming. So an example
of this would be Saint Louis in the Carolinas are
the Covenant UCC Baptists in d C. And then I'm

(01:07:13):
also thinking about churches that have been started by black
queer folk, and often when I hear the statement of oh,
I'm not interested in going to one of those affirming churches.
A lot of times that, as I've heard, it has

(01:07:36):
been a sort of cover phrase for churches that have
been started by black queer folk, because the ideas that
ooh is just too gay over there. Like I've heard
this about Vision, like I've heard I've heard black gay
people say, Oh, it's just too gay for me. It's
just too much the having the first gentleman and all

(01:07:57):
of the carrying on and the girls drift dressing up
and wearing all this. It isn't what it used to
be back in the day. But if you are an
old school Atlanta head, before there was Vision, there was
Tabernacle with Dennis Meridith out of Ohio, and.

Speaker 9 (01:08:20):
An interesting if you want to glimpse back at that
moment in history, his Former Wife's Tell All book sort
of has a very good glimpse into the sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Late nineties Black Atlanta gazing early two thousands era and
what was going on there. So there's that type of
a church. And actually, as a matter of fact, Tabernacle
actually fits into the first category. It doesn't fit into
the second category if we're talking about these categories in
these ways. So I think there's a lot of things

(01:08:52):
at play there. I think one thing that is at
play is and this is the surface level, the low
hanging fruit. I think that internalized homophobia is a part
of that. We would say that it's internalized racism that's
causing a black person to say, oh, I just can't
go to no black church. It's just too much black
over there, too many black people. So then we have

(01:09:14):
to echo the same thing here, Yes that there there
are aspects of internalized homophobia and this this this attraction
to being the token gay guy that's accepted by all
the church mothers in the church and that don't nobody
mess with. But you're the exception, so sore. There is

(01:09:37):
that that sort of trope there. I think another thing
that is at play at this is that there and
I and I get it this a little bit in
my book that and and this is going to be
a large my next book that I'm I'm almost done
writing right now is all on churches, mosques, and measures

(01:10:01):
and temples that have been founded by black queer folk
in North America. So the history of this is what
I'm trying to write out. And I have one of
the only lists of the churches that have been founded
by black queer folks since nineteen seventy And these churches

(01:10:25):
last for about twenty four months, and the majority of
them vanished off of the face of the earth during
the HIV AIDS height of the crisis during that time.
And obviously that's why, you know, whole churches were vanishing
in a month's time. But these churches also face a

(01:10:49):
huge challenge of economics. They have a hard time finding
a consistent physical place to worship. They have a hard
time hiring musicians that create that church soundscape. They also
don't have the full ecology of the sort of black

(01:11:12):
family unit in the room. Because you got to realize
that in many ways, the family unit that is the
church family is an echo of the family unit that
existed on the plantation, in which we didn't always have
a mother or a grandmother or somebody, but somebody in
the community took that role and responsibility that the church
becomes the sort of microcosm of that. And a lot

(01:11:36):
of times when people go to church, they want to
see the older church mother, they want to see families,
they want to see this full thing that the gay
community has not really gotten to the place of being
able to have in such a flourishing way in all
of the locations. So you may have one exception, like
a Vision that is the only megachurch that's been founded

(01:11:58):
by a black queer person, but then you have all
these other reformations and all of these other churches that
are not that doing that well. I just have to
say that Clay's is an exception. The rest of them
are just not doing that well. And by doing well,
and my research, I describe doing well as being able

(01:12:20):
to sustain itself. We're not even talking about into the future.
I'm just talking about sustain itself in the right now,
and most of these churches don't have the ability to
do that. To sustain yourself, you need to be able
to pay a past, you need to be able to
pay musicians, you need to be able to have functionality.

(01:12:41):
So I think a lot of black folk want a
full worship experience, and they just can't find it right
now in these black churches that have been founded by
black queer folk. Now there is also this other thing
of well, I also don't want to go to the
church that is fully affirming, And the other category would
be the churches that are like mine, the historically black

(01:13:05):
churches that have queered their contexts. Here is, and I
don't say this in a bragging way. I just said
because it is just one of the true things. The
data shows the following thing that at a large number

(01:13:25):
of black, historically black churches that queer their contexts end
up becoming white, are largely populated by white persons because
a lot of times the queering happens as a response
to the neighborhood changing and being gentrified, which is often
led by wealthier gay men, white gay men. So for instance,

(01:13:49):
Union United Methodist Church, which is the flagship church of
queering black churches, is now majority white. So that's the
first thing. So a lot of these faces end up
replicating a lot of whiteness, which is what they're running
from from an MCC. The other problem is the vast

(01:14:09):
majority of them are not doing well. They queered themselves
for a demographic that is really not interested in them.
They want to go to brunch, they're not trying to
go to church. And yes, d C is largely gay,
but a lot of the churches that have done this
there are not gay. People are not rushing up in there,

(01:14:31):
and the population that's there is aging. And I think
in a in a in a you know, and there
are a large number of black gay folk who are
packing up in mega churches because mega churches are not
gonna They're gonna straddle the fence. They're not gonna they

(01:14:51):
might have a guest that comes in like with, but
they're not gonna go all the way there because they
don't want to piss folk off. TDJS is a perfect
example of straddling the fence. Then you can just blend
right in. You can come in and get your church,
get right out. You don't have to worry about trying
to help save this church. Because trust me, if you're
a younger gay couple you go into one of these
open and affirming churches that has done this work, they're

(01:15:12):
gonna attack you. They're gonna want you to be a
Sunday school teacher. They're gon'n want you to do this,
They gonn want to help save the church. There's a
lot at play at the root of this question, and
so I just wanted to to I didn't answer it
as much as I just wanted to sort of, uh,
make it more complex.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
But even with what you offered, you you gave an answer,
and you gave a history, and you gave a context
and and and I'm thankful for it. But before I
fully respond, you got something you want to say?

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
Yeah, I just want to touch on the.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
On the notion of how many of our gay ken
shun and I want to say embarrassed, Uh say shun
and insult persons who choose to stay in traditional spaces

(01:16:07):
that may not necessarily be affirming and welcoming, but for
those folks who see their staying in those spaces as
an act of resistance, as a way of being present

(01:16:28):
or being a visible representation of what the future looks like,
I personally believe there are some queer folks who are
called to stay.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
In these spaces to be disruptive.

Speaker 4 (01:16:43):
To remind the church that the church is changing, that
the church.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
Is not just this monolith.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
And I've had to check myself in that because years
ago I was waging this campaign to get yank everybody out.

Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Y'all come over.

Speaker 4 (01:17:02):
Here, you know, and you know where your love, where
you're affirmed. And sometimes our spaces are just replicas of.

Speaker 3 (01:17:13):
The places that we came out of, say that part.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
Yeah, and we get up in there and we see
the same injustice happening.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
And so I just want to uplift in this domain
of this.

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):
Question those folks who choose to stay for reasons that
are bigger than they are individually, who choose to stay
to be models for the young people, for the young
queer people.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
That are in that church.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
That may not necessarily be opening and open and affirming.
I also wanted to just touch a little bit on
the fact that in my consulting work with churches who
hire ministers of music and worship leaders, that is often
a question that I bring up with pastors in terms
of you know them warning a certain type of minister

(01:18:06):
of music or worship leader or pastor of worship you
know that has all these credentials, that has this theological
theological lens for worship and the arts.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
And my question is, are you and your congregation prepared.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
To have somebody who is qualified for this job, who
may come in to this interview as an open, openly
queer person. The person that you're looking for might be
a queer person. Are you okay with that? And many
times they are, we've.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
Done the work, or you know that won't be a problem.

Speaker 10 (01:18:41):
And in other times, in other spaces, they have to
be very honest and say, Tony, nobody's ever asked me that,
and you know that that has to be a question
that that I bring up, that that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Pastors need to consider.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
And sometimes people don't choose me to help them because
they know I'm openly gate.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
And that's a whole nother another thing, but.

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
That question is a critical part of what I asked
pastors in the initial consultation with them when they called
me to help them find somebody that the person that
you're looking for just might be queer, And are you
ready to embrace somebody your congregation ready to embrace somebody
that would identify that way they can do the job

(01:19:31):
and do it well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Thank you for that. And I specifically want to say,
with the way you answered that question, you lifted me
up and you shined the light on me, and I
felt incredibly seen by what you shared because and I

(01:19:53):
do have to honor Unity Fellowship Church, and I do
have to particularly honor their Brooklyn congregation because that that's
where my adult spiritual formation started. So I do have
to honor them. But you know, as I began to grow,
I did start to want that traditional church experience, just

(01:20:15):
with some open and affirming theology. I've always been a
flagship church girl. I was born in a flagship church.
Memorial was what you would consider a flagship church. Before
I came to Howard, I joined Concord Baptist in Brooklyn,

(01:20:37):
which is a flagship church. Shout out to reverend doctors
Gary and Emma Simpson. Even when I came to DC,
a lot of my life was being a chapel assistant
at Ranking Chapel for a time. I even went and
joined Ebeneza A and Me out in Fort Washington, still

(01:20:58):
another flagship church. And then, as I stated, when we started,
you know this recording for really my whole thirties, and
you know, this is the longest I've been at a
church since I've been at my childhood, since I was
a child. But I have been a member of a

(01:21:21):
two hundred something year old Black Baptist church and over
these past couple of years, even though Alfred Street may
still have a way to go, I see how far
Alfred Street has come, and I am one of those
ones that you know, our fellowship with open inter firm
and congregations. I'll support when it where I can. But

(01:21:42):
I do feel that call to be one of the
ones that stays, because if we all leave, the conversations
won't be had. So this is the last question before
we close out in prayer, and if we can do
it rapid fire, I think we can answer this question.

(01:22:04):
We can. We can have some prayer time together and
I can still get y'all out by nine o'clock. What
is your dream for black queer man within the church.

Speaker 5 (01:22:15):
I'll let somebody else start first. Let me think about this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
I can, I can go. My dream is I want
to speak directly for if I could tweak it just
a little bit to speak for young black gay boys.
My dream is that young black gay boys will be
able to be in full expiration mode about themselves, about

(01:22:44):
God and be fully accepted and affirmed in their churches
and their choirs on their usher boards, that youth ministries
would be inclusive in and actually talk about sex education

(01:23:05):
but also talk about sex in a way that sort
of rectifies the silence that has been associated with the
spread of HIV in Black churches. And I pray that
young black gay boys will be able to have a

(01:23:32):
their boyfriend be acknowledged and affirmed in the same way
that we do when heterosexual kids are going to prom
or are showing their pictures or talking about things. You know,
just in so many ways the stuff that we weren't
able to do and share it did affect us, and

(01:23:55):
many of us are just now living into those possibilities
at our present ages. So I pray that they could
just be kids and be free.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
That's my dream, I'll go real quick.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
My hope for black gay men in the Black church
is that their queerness not be divorced from their giftedness,
because a lot of times churches will see the queerness.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
But they would love only and cater to the giftedness
that we know that you are a black gay man.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
You are our minister of music, but we're not going
to talk about that queer side of you.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
We're just gonna love on the part.

Speaker 4 (01:24:38):
Of you that serves us, that makes our church have
the best choir. But we won't acknowledge like Brandon was saying,
the fact that your boyfriend is sitting back there on
the back row and affirm him. But look, I hope
for the day when our giftedness and our queerness.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
That there's no divide between the two of those.

Speaker 6 (01:25:06):
And in my response, I want to lift up rivers
of Living Water United Church of Christ Bishop Vanessa Brown.
That was one of the churches that I served at
in seminary when I was doing field ed, and one
of the aspects of the church that I really thought
was beautiful was not only did they have a mother board,
but she also had a father board where it centered

(01:25:30):
not just black queer women, but black queer men. And
I think that's one of my dreams for the church
moving forward, is that we honor our black elders in
that type of way where we see them, we affirm them,
we allow them to know that they are not they
won't never be forgotten, that their light would never be diminished,

(01:25:52):
and that all of their work, all of their efforts
that they have done to make the church both safe
and beautiful, will be honor by us while they are living.
We often do this thing where we honor folks as ancestors,
but while they are living, we do very little to
honor them. So I hope in my dream for the
Black Church, especially for Black queer elders, is that we

(01:26:15):
honor them while they're living. We create a space in
our worship experience for them to be honored, just like
we do for Black church mothers.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
I think that is my dream for the church, and
then that's my dream as well. My dream is for
a generation of black LGBTQ folks to be able to
walk into Black churches and see Pride Sunday and see
Black Pride Sunday celebrated in the same way that Black
History Months and Women's History Months are celebrated, just like

(01:26:50):
you celebrate the contribution our contribusions as African Americans. Just
as we're starting to learn how to celebrate the contribusions
of women to the Black Church, let's also really start
to learn to celebrate the contributions and the witness of
black LGPTQ people to the Black Church. Because, as this

(01:27:10):
episode title says, we built this city and if it
were not for us, there would not be a y'all.

(01:27:33):
Thanks for sticking with Hella Black Hella Queer. Hello Christian
so we are coming to the end of another episode
for our listeners. Usually we have closing prayer where it's
just me and y'all. But I cannot have these preachers
on the podcast on the podcast and and and not

(01:27:54):
at least try to get them to pray. This is
what I want to do. First, everybody, go around, let
people know how they can find you, share any type
of prayer request you may have, and then will go
back around and then just just offer a prayer of
blessing for those of us you know who have been

(01:28:17):
in community tonight. And also you know what what whatever
the spirit may lay on your heart.

Speaker 6 (01:28:24):
So again, my name is Sean Torres Anderson and I
forgot to do this at the beginning. I use him
his pronounce You can find me on Facebook Seawan Torres
Anderson on Instagram Sir Torres s I R T O
R R E y s. No, you cannot follow me
on Twitter because that is some other content doesnt be cleare.

Speaker 5 (01:28:46):
Not me content that I said that I view and
my private hours. Thank you, but find me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
My name, uh is It's it's just my name, Brandon
Thomas Croley on social media. On Facebook and Instagram, you
can also reached me through the church website, Myrtle Baptist.
I think it's dot org. But I think if you
put dot com, I think it'll go to dot org.

(01:29:19):
And yeah, I think that's it, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
And then do you have a prayer request?

Speaker 2 (01:29:24):
Prayer request? Oh, yes, I have one member who I
love all of my members dearly, but I have one
member that I just loved dearly, who is going for
her first chemo treatment tomorrow. They let her know that

(01:29:45):
it's in stage four, you know, it's it's it's spread
and they just caught it. And so I got to
be with her when she got the information. I got
to helped her to decide whether she was going to
do chemo or not. And so she decided to do it.
And so tomorrow's a big day at one o'clock. So

(01:30:05):
just praying that you know that God will give me
what to say tomorrow to her, but also that God
would just be with her.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
Yep. And then Sean, do you have a prayer quest.

Speaker 6 (01:30:18):
I'm praying for all of our children who are journeying
back to school, and those who are in the south
there are journeying back. Now those who are in the
north will be back to school in the next few weeks,
and for all the educators who will be hearing the
stories of how these children summers went either good or bad,
ing different and how we continue to hold space for

(01:30:41):
our young people in our classrooms. How do we create
safe and equitable spaces in our classrooms for these babies.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Who are coming back to Tony? How can folks find you?
Do you have a prayer request?

Speaker 4 (01:30:56):
Yes, my name is Tony McNeil to you why and
McNeil is spelled M C n E I L L.
I'm a double L McNeil. A lot of people leave
that second L off. But you can find me on
social media at doctor Tony mac d R t O
n Y m A C on Instagram, and I think
you can put it in Facebook and all of my

(01:31:19):
Facebook pages will come up. I'm on LinkedIn and Blue
Sky as well. And my website address is doctor.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
Tony McNeil dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:31:33):
And my prayer request is for me just just as
I am about to turn fifty four years old in
August August twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
Looking good, black don crack.

Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
Thank you sir, and and just in a place of
discerning what's next, you know, career wise, and just uh personally,
and there's some things that are some some thing bucket
list things that I want to do, and I'm at
this stage nine where I'm ready to do.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Them, Okay, and then look look in the show notes. Oh,
as far as I'm concerned, Always be mindful to look
into the show notes because you never know what goodies
I'll have for you there. But you can find me
on Instagram, you can find me on threads. You can

(01:32:27):
find me on X My Family Friendly X at Joseph
they them so that's gonna be j O s E
p h t h E y t h E M.
You can find me on Facebook Joseph Reeves and then
that's r E A v E S. You can find
me on Blue Sky Joseph, the them dot, the b

(01:32:49):
s k y dot Social and then you can also
email me at Joseph re at iHeart dot Joseph rees
at iHeartMedia dot com, and you can send your prayer
request there, and you can send your praise reports there,
cause you never know. You may get a shout out
on a future episode of Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian.

(01:33:12):
So Sean is asking that we would pray for students
as they're returning back to school. Brandon is asking that
we would lift up his congregant, who is facing stage
for cancer. Tony is asking for praisens he enters into
a new year of life by God's grace, and I'm

(01:33:35):
really hearing that. Tony is just asking for us to
pray for him as he's getting ready to walk out
on the water in this new year of life. And
then for me, I am also praying for that as well,
help me get my footing back. Twenty twenty five has
not been what I've expected, and I just really need

(01:33:58):
some things to turn back around right side up. With
the streams of income that I lost, I'm just asking
that they be replaced. And I've been walking out on
the water, but as of lately it's been feeling more
like I've been flailing around. So that's my prayer request.

(01:34:18):
So we're just gonna and then we're just gonna move,
you know, as we would be led to move. So really,
I'm gonna invite for everybody to come off off Mike
and whatever background noise goes on is whatever background noise
goes on, and you know, Sean, you can start us off.
Then Brandy, we can transition to you. We can come

(01:34:40):
to you, doctor Tony, and then I'll close us out.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Let us pray.

Speaker 6 (01:34:49):
God of many names, we thank you. We thank you
for this time of gathering tonight, this fellowship of kindred minds.
We think, thank you God for binding our hearts not
only in Christian love, but in love that we have
for one another. Love we have for community, love we
have for self. God, we thank you for being.

Speaker 5 (01:35:11):
Jehovah, rapha, Jehovah, nissi, Jehovah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:13):
Sick you do.

Speaker 6 (01:35:14):
We thank you for being all in all. We thank
you for being our God. Now, God, we ask that
you will bless and sanctify this particular space on tonight,
honor and bless our conversations on tonight. We ask God
that you would continue to lift up all of the
in touch and hear all of the prayer requests that

(01:35:36):
we have lifted up on tonight. We ask God that
you want to incline thy ear to us and grant
us our needs needs for healing, needs for direction, needs
for peace, needs for covering, needs for protection. God, we
ask God that you would be who we need you
to be in this moment. God, we know that you

(01:35:58):
can be everything, but right now, God, we need you
to be that one thing for us. So God, in
the mighty name of Jesus the Christ, we are calling
and appealing to you, O God, for you to do
what no other power can do, Oh God. And now God,

(01:36:19):
as we transition from this mold of worship back into
our regular lives, we ask God that you would be
with us. God, that you would continue to make your
habitation with us, O God, that you will.

Speaker 5 (01:36:32):
Continue to make your face known.

Speaker 6 (01:36:34):
To us, Oh God, Lord God, we ask that you
allow your voice to be illuminated in our very heart,
So God, so that we can continue to be led
and guided by you and by.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
The spirit of God.

Speaker 6 (01:36:46):
So that when we step out on the waters, that
we would have a safe place for our foot to land.
When we go to the doctor, Oh God, that a
good report will follow. When we walk into these classrooms,
O God, that they will be safe spaces for our
children and equitable spaces for our children. And even when
we walk into these sanctuaries, O God, places of worship,

(01:37:08):
O God, whether it is the church or the masgyt,
the or the any other places of worship, God, that
your spirit will be there to lead and guide us
into all ways of truth, O God, And that you
would allow those spaces to be spaces where we feel safe,
we feel seen, we feel heard, we feel justified, Oh God,

(01:37:30):
And that we will allow those spaces to continue to
grow in grace and grow in stature, so that we
might be there covered by you, O God, and protected
by your blood.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
Oh God.

Speaker 5 (01:37:44):
Now God, we thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Hallelujah. God. We come to you in this moment, thanking
you for your goodness and for your mercy, for your
grace and for your power. God. I thank you for
every friend that is gathered in this space. For Joseph. God,

(01:38:09):
we thank you for them, and we pray that you
would bless their life. God. Thank you for calling Joseph
to bring this moment together, to bring us together to
have this podcast. Bless them, God, Bless them God, God.

(01:38:33):
We want to pause for a moment to pray for Joseph.
Bless them God, God. I also pray for Sean. I
pray for Uncle Tony. I pray that you would bless
them for their individual needs, for the needs that they

(01:38:53):
have for other people. This we pray, O Lord God.
I also pray in this moment for every person that
will hear this podcast. I pray that you will annoint
the words that we've said that they might do good
in the world, far beyond what we can even imagine

(01:39:15):
or think. For the truth is, many of us don't
even realize how our testimony affects people, and how our presence,
our showing up affects people. And so God, I thank
you for the words that Uncle Tony has shared and
the story that he has shared this evening, and for

(01:39:35):
how lives will be changed as a result of it.
I thank you for the words that Sean has said,
and for how the way that he's articulated his experience
will meet some here is exactly where they are. And
thank you for Joseph and how they've shared their story
and how their story will impact and change lives of

(01:40:01):
those who are hearers and listeners of this podcast. Then God,
I end this prayer praying for a specific group, a
group that we mention today that I want to I
feel just safe in this space to pray about this
particular group. There's no other space where I can do

(01:40:21):
this because there's so many other members of the acronym,
because some spaces are filled with all different types of people,
not just people who lgbtq I AP plus, but right
now I want to pray for black gay boys and
black gay men. I want to pray right now because God,

(01:40:46):
there is a mental health crisis going on with black
men in general. And there is something at the root
of this that's even deeper that no one is talking about,
and that is the fact that a lot of these
mental health issues and crises are connected to the fact

(01:41:06):
that a lot of these men are bisexual. A lot
of these men are queer. A lot of these men
are really trans women, and they are trapped in this
heteronormative world, in this gender male body, and it is

(01:41:28):
causing them to want to self terminate. And so God,
I pray for the spirits of young boys who are
trying to make sense out of their queerness in their
grandmother's homes, in their grandfather's basements, in their parents' homes,

(01:41:48):
in the back seat of the school bus. I pray
for them in their minds. God, that as they are
discovering and exploring, that they will do so with the
aid of condom usage and prep and PEP and doxy. God,
I pray God that you would send the proper persons

(01:42:12):
to teach our younger brothers how to have sex. God,
I was so moved in my spirit my belly jumped
when Uncle Tony talked about how his mother trusted an
older gay man to mentor him. So often we hear

(01:42:33):
the opposite story that, Oh, don't let them hang around
such and such because you know they're gay, because we
always like to treat them all life. But God, I
pray that what you provided for Uncle Tony, that you
will drop in the lives of so many young boys
who will ask them the questions, has anybody been touching you?
Do you get an erection? There's nothing wrong with that.

(01:42:55):
There is nothing bad about masturbation. There is nothing wrong
about trying to discover what brings you pleasure. And God,
I pray that you will put people in their pathways
who will not be sircum to the teenage boy locker
room trope that has been preprogrammed in so many of

(01:43:16):
our pornographic viewing, that they would not pervert the responsibility
that you've called them to in order to mentor, but
that you would pour your spirit out through these conduits,
through these gay men who have the experience to tell
their story. God, I pray that you would do this.

(01:43:37):
And God, I pray for our brothers right now who
are in marriages who grew up in a different time
and in a different era, and they're married to women
and they're trying to figure out what this is. God,
I'm praying for them tonight. I'm also praying for our
siblings who are trying their best to put together the

(01:44:00):
pieces of their lives because poverty and financial challenges set
in because they decided to be themselves and they're trying
to find employment. God, we are praying for our brothers
who are trying their best to be authentic but are
paying the price for it. Nobody talks about the price

(01:44:22):
that goes along with this freedom. And God, I'm praying
for my brothers who are bearing those crosses and we
are smiling and we're directing, and we're preaching, and we're
making this look easy, but it is a heavy weight.
And so God, I'm praying for all of us. I'm
praying that we would find rest. God, I am praying

(01:44:43):
that millions of dollars would come into the hands of
the right persons so that we can find respit and
sabbath and retreat for black gay men, not to have
to produce more. But to rest God, we need this.
We need these resources. In the name of Jesus, in

(01:45:03):
the name of James Baldwin, in the name of lest Us,
in black gay power, Jesus name, Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:45:21):
I want to pray in a different way.

Speaker 1 (01:45:23):
That's all right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):
Conco crate us now.

Speaker 11 (01:45:31):
To thy service, Lord of Grace, divis Our souls look
up with the steadfast, and our wills bes in thine.

(01:46:00):
So draw snee.

Speaker 12 (01:46:06):
Nearer blessing to of course, where.

Speaker 5 (01:46:19):
Trausne nearer blasser.

Speaker 2 (01:46:27):
Oh.

Speaker 12 (01:46:31):
To thy precious, to thy precious being, side to thy precious.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
Wow, hallelujah.

Speaker 1 (01:47:15):
Did God? We love you, Hm did Jesus, we love you,
precious and wonderful Holy Spirit.

Speaker 7 (01:47:27):
We love you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
And God, I want to come and I want to
thank you for being a prayer answering God. I want
to thank you for being a God that still answers
when we call. I want to thank you for being
a God that still grants requests. I want to thank

(01:47:55):
you for being a God who still opens the door
and we knock, a God that still allows us to
find you when we go search for you. God, thank
you for granted my request because God asked that you

(01:48:19):
would show up tonight. I asked that you would bless
I asked that you would come in an extraordinary way,
and God you did it. God you stopped by when
you did not have to, and I'm ever so grateful.

Speaker 7 (01:48:43):
Thank you God for anointing that still destroys the yoke,
anointing that destroys the yoke of shame, anointing that destroys
the yoke of guilt, anointing that destroys.

Speaker 1 (01:48:59):
The of fear.

Speaker 13 (01:49:02):
Thank you that there is power in the name of Jesus.
And the power that is in the name of Jesus
is stronger than any power that may be found in homophobia.
The name Jesus is stronger and more powerful than transphobia.
The name Jesus is more powerful than any biphobia or

(01:49:24):
queer antagonism. The name Jesus is stronger than any spiritual
wickedness that may come against us.

Speaker 7 (01:49:34):
We still believe.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
God. Thank you for this.

Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
Podcast opportunity, and thank you for how this is being
an extension of the anointing that You've put on my
licence I was a child. Thank you for community, Thank
you for freedom, thank you for liberate, Thank you for
true deliverance, True deliverance, not that counterfeit deliverance that they

(01:50:06):
tried to tell us that they're needed. But true deliverance,
Not that deliverance that wanted us to mutilate ourselves into
some hetero sexist fact simile of who the world told
us we needed to be. But true deliverance. God, where
we can say that we're spirit filled, where we can

(01:50:29):
say that we're erotic and we're sensual, and we're sexual
and we're political, and none of it negates the other.
Thank you for wholeness that is greater than holiness, because God,
I'd rather be whole than holy. We're standing with my

(01:50:55):
friend Sean. Thank you for his fire, thank you for
his ministry. And we're praying for the children of this nation,
particularly the queer and trans youth being placed on the
altars of fascism that are being placed on the altars

(01:51:15):
of Christian nationalism. Protect our babies. God, be with Brandon's parishioner. God,
You're greater than stage for cancer. You can have the
final say over stage for cancer. And no matter how

(01:51:36):
the story is, we will yet proclaim that you are
a healer. Be with Uncle Tony. Thank you for his
presence among us tonight as an elder. Thank you for
the way he moved the program out of the way

(01:51:58):
and came in his own way. And as he prepares
to walk into a new year of life, let his
ladder truly be greater than his former. And then, God,
I close this time of prayer saying.

Speaker 2 (01:52:13):
God, it's me.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
It's me, it's me, Oh Lord, And I'm standing in
the need of prayer. I'm standing in the need of help.
Get me back to shore and get me back to
solid ground, because God, I can't do it by myself.

(01:52:38):
I've tried and it ain't working out too great. I'm
asking that you blessed this podcast. I'm asking that it
would be a critical and commercial success. God, let us
get a season two, a season three, or season four.
But Lord, even that, help me to trust you more

(01:53:01):
as my source than any resource that may be in
my hand. For the current moment, all we ask is
all in your sweet and precious name, Jesus, because Jesus,
your name means so much to us. In the sweet
and precious name of Jesus, we pray a man, Amen

(01:53:22):
and Amen. You're listening to Hella Black, Hella Queer. Hello, Christian,
thanks for sticking with Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hello Christian. Well, folks,
that was another episode of Hella Black, Hello, Queer, Hello Christian.
I want to thank my guests for joining us. Please

(01:53:47):
be sure to follow them on their socials because they're
doing such important work. As always like comment, share, subscribe,
rate five stars for them, the only ratings we want.
Praise God. And until next time, take care of yourselves
and take care of each other. And I look forward

(01:54:09):
to being able to see you again real soon for
another episode of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hello Christian. Hella Black, Hello, Queer,
Hello Christian is a production of iHeartMedia on the Outspoken Slate,
which seeks to amplify LGBTQ voices in podcasting. I am

(01:54:30):
your host and executive creative producer Joseph Frees, along with
Gabrielle Collins, who also serves as executive producer. Dylan you
Are is a producer. Trevor is our lead producer and editor.

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