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Christian author Matthew Paul Turner made a big announcement over the weekend. He and his wife of nearly 20 years, Jessica, are getting a divorce. Also, he’s gay.
“Dear friends, I have difficult news to share,” the 44-year-old wrote on Facebook. “After much thought, prayer, and counseling, Jessica and I have made the decision to end our marriage.”
“While we’re best friends and thoroughly love doing life, parenting, and pursuing our dreams together, ending our marriage is necessary because I am gay.”
Turner, who supported Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic primaries and whose children’s books include When God Made You and When God Made Light, went on to explain that he’s long known he was gay, but spending over three decades in fundamentalist/evangelical churches forced him to keep his true feelings buried.
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“I’ve lived many days overwhelmed by fear, shame, and self-hatred,” he added. “Though my own faith evolved long ago to become LGBTQ+ affirming, my journey toward recognizing, accepting and embracing myself took much longer.”
Turner then thanked Jessica, to whom he was married for 17 years and shares three children, for her support.
“I would not be able to say that without Jessica’s undying grace and support. I fell in love with her 17 years ago and still love her deeply. Despite her own grief and pain, she has loved and encouraged me to be fully me.”
Turner also shared the news with his 21,000 followers on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCvnte8DmLG/?utm_source=ig_embed
In her own statement, Jessica said: “My husband, my best friend has bravely shared his deepest truth this past year. He is gay. While this doesn’t change how much we love him, it does change our relationship. We are moving forward with ending our marriage, while remaining deeply committed to our family and each other.”
https://www.facebook.com/TheMomCreative/photos/a.10152724525214795/10158293124709795/?type=3
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joeboyle49
WELL THATS NOT NEW. IM SURE THERES LOTS OF GAYS WHO GOT MARRIED BECAUSE OF RELIGION OR BECAUSE OF PARENTS PUSHING YOU TO GET MARRIED LIKE MY DAD DID MY WIFE AND I GOT DIVORCED AFTER 10 YEARS OF MARRIAGE AND I LEFT THE CHURCH BECAUSE OF IT AND BECAUSE OF THERE BELIEFS OF GAYS ARE EVIL AND WE CAN JUST PRAY IT AWAY WELL I HAD ENOUGH OF THAT AND JUST WANTED TO BE ME! I WANTED TO LIVE MY WAY WITHOUT THE CHURCH TRYING TO PREACH DOWN MY THROAT. I COULDN’T DO IT ANY LONGER SO WE DIVORCED.
Troysky
@joeboyle49 …. <3
ThinkPlease
I’m shocked. Shocked. Well, not that shocked.
Donston
Being inherently homo doesn’t automatically mean you want to end your hetero marriage or that you don’t want to be with a woman. People do need to stop hiding behind identities or religions or sociology. You don’t want to leave your wife simply because you’re “gay”. You want to leave because you’d rather have persistent same-sex sexual attention, passions, affections, emotional investment, romantic commitment. People do need to be okay with what they want. Be cool with what you want.
Neither seems bitter. And it doesn’t appear that he spent years manipulating her. So, that’s a good thing.
Kangol2
Donston, based on what he’s saying here, “Gay” is shorthand to him for wanting to explore same-sexual desire, intimacy and sex with other men without being married to a woman. You often mention “sociology” but never “psychology,” which is fundamental to human existence and it appears that he has made a psychological breakthrough in terms of how he sees himself and how that redefines his life. Identity labels are shorthand for many people; that doesn’t mean they don’t also have a more complex view of such terms or themselves; in this pastor’s case, he not only was attracted to men but considered himself “gay” going back quite some time, so the life he had established with a woman, shaped in part by external repression, or “three decades in fundamentalist/evangelical churches,” and his own self-repression, or “fear, shame, and self-hatred, was unsustainable. He appears to be a liberal Christian, not a right-winger, and, having come out, realized that the life he wanted to live now would not work with a woman as his wife. “Gay,” as his self-understood placeholder, sounds perfectly fine.
Donston
I usually don’t mention psychology directly because I don’t want people sarcastically asking me if I’m a therapist or if I have degrees. But a lot of what I break down is about psychological aspects and motivations.
We agree on a lot but also have key differences. You very much promote and support identity politics. While I’m starting to view identity dependence as more and more problematic, especially in the social media age. It’s starting to instigate a lot of insecurities and a lot of nit-picking, and it helps lead to more sociological jockeying. There are people who are entirely inherently homo, fit entirely on the homo end of the romantic, sexual, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum and who do consider themselves “gay” and “liberal”, but they still enter into and stay in hetero relationship dynamics for whatever reasons. Just as there are people who might technically being hetero but they mostly or entirely date their sex and have substantial relationships with their sex. Whatever those reasons are and whatever your dimensions or struggles reflect, take responsibility for your choices.
We’re seeing identities being used to detach from personal responsibility. We’re seeing them be used to fit into or fit out of socio-political niches. We’re seeing them being used as a shield to hide your ego and dimensions behind. My point is that people need to take more responsibility for their choices and do what they want and go for what they really want. Don’t use identity as a fallback or an excuse maker. But I do understand that my perspective on things is a complete revamp of an established system.
Blue Zoo
Donston, he’s not using gay as an excuse for his behavior, he’s using it as an explanation for why he chose end his marriage. And it’s an explanation that makes perfect sense to those of us who fit entirely on the homo end of the romantic, sexual, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum because that’s exactly what we mean when we say we’re gay. Honestly, Donston, I’ve never understood your insistence on pinning gay men with this crazy notion that we’ve signed on to some sort of identity cult, when all we ever wanted to do was let people know that we fit on the homo end of the romantic, sexual, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum without having to type all of those words every time we bring it up.
Andrew
Jessica, Thanks for being supportive. It is nice to hear.
Troysky
…and….trim his facial hair back, and he’s a handsome guy … wishing them the best
radiooutmike
Good on him. I’ve been there.
Smith David
This is what the pressures of society can do to people. It can ruin lives simply over “appearance”.
Bubbleandsqueal
The “eyewear” alone should have given him away.
trsxyz
Tough road ahead… She’s got to be sublimating some justifiable anger that she’ll be dealing with down-line. But at the moment they both appear to be handling this gracefully, with the best interest of their children in mind. Good luck to them.
Donston
We don’t know the details of their relationship. So, who knows if she has resentments. It doesn’t appear to be a situation where he spent many years greatly misleading her. She’s likely known for a long time that her husband was no where near “straight”. She perhaps has known for just as long that he’s homosexual and/or leans towards his sex when it comes to the romantic, sexual, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum. When both parties are greatly guided by religion it’s actually more likely for the partners to have an understanding of each other’s motivations when it comes to this kind of stuff. It seems more like a: “this is something we’ve both always known and sorta talked about, but things are coming to head now” type situation.