So, here’s the coming out story you stopped caring about by Monday. But, even though you already knew Chely Wright was a gay, you should still watch this (and the other soon-to-come) interviews with her, because her story is pretty great.
Yes, she is a famous (in some circles) person, so her story will get more attention that your own little coming out tale. But what’s important to note is her personal narrative is no more important than your own — and thus just as relatable as what you went through. Minus the whole “being in the spotlight” thing, where her coming out doesn’t just face criticism from friends and family, but perfect strangers on a national scale.
Wright says at one point she had a 9mm in her mouth, so depressed over living a “sercret life.” She “saw no way to for [being gay and a country star] to coexist.” That’s pretty terrible, and if just one little girl or boy — or even those oft neglected closeted adults! — can find some hope in her story, then the public spectacle over her acknowledgment was all worthwhile.
Stay tuned for interviews on The View, Access Hollywood, and Ben & Dave’s Six Pack.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Blake
Chely Wright is amazing for this… She easily could have kept on going hiding who she is… But instead you is taking a stand. Yes many are going to say its to promote herself… But SO WHAT!!! Good for her… This is a win for the GLBT community… Take it or leave it homos 🙂
Scottie
What a beautiful lesbian!
Erik
The more people who come out and share their story, the better.
Shade
Good for her! I’ll check out her new album.
Fitz
It’s hard to become who you are. I did it in a great family, in progressive communities. I don’t know how messed up her self image must have been. I do hope she goes into another musical venue, cuz the beehive trailer park crowd will NOT be having her back.
Fitz
Oh, and hubris in that ‘bumper sticker on my SUV’ song: earns her an extra dose of shit.
Puma
Cool interview on the Edge Network today: http://www.edgeonthenet.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=features&sc3=&id=105333
AndrewW
I still think the “big coming out story” (Cinco de Mayo) will be Shakira or Mario Lopez. Please.
AlwaysGay
I’m impressed by her courage. She really had a tough time dealing with her sexuality, she turned it around though. We need to support her. Boycott Big $ Rich, they are bigots.
wmcarpenter
Who?
Mike L.
Wow this is pretty cool, yeah it wasn’t some super A lister who came out, but in the end it really didn’t matter, this was very much worth it. Such a beautiful story of her momment of self acceptance.
Darn, I might buy her book now, I’m very intrigued about what her life’s been like.
And John Rich that bastard.
asa1973
I applaud her. The snippets of her songs sound cheesy, though. And didn’t KD Lang come out a long time ago?
DR (the real one, not the guy who made post #12)
This has been a pretty good week for coming out. First her, then Blake Skjellerup. No, they’re not huge celebrities, but they are in the public eye and out, and that takes a lot of courage. They have just as much to lose as the rest of us, plus sponsors, etc.
But in the end, the editors got it right. If these stories help one person, young or old, come to terms with who they are, it’s worth it in the end.
Cam
At first I was dissappointed it wasn’t somebody more famous but what a great interview. Good for her. I’m not a huge country fan but I’m going to download a few of her songs. hell, let people see that coming out put some extra money in her pocket. 🙂
Mike L.
@asa1973: The Canadian country music scene does not equal USA country music scene.
Cam
No. 15 · Mike L.
@asa1973: The Canadian country music scene does not equal USA country music scene.
___________________________
K.D. Lang Won two American Grammy Awards for “Best Country Vocal Performance”.
Mike L.
@Cam: Good to know
Alfonzo
This is amazing. Especially for children of faith who are constantly told they can’t maintain their faith if they are gay.
David K
“There has never been an openly gay country music artist”
I guess she has never heard of KD Lang…
Andy
Nice story, but can we stop relying on non-existent beings for personal guidance? The 30,000 children who starve every day don’t so why can’t everyone else?
Viral
@Andy: People can stop believing in “non-existent beings” when you stop being a tool who capitalizes on tragedies who probably don’t really give a damn about to make a half-ass point. Her faith has nothing to do with your lack of, so why is it your concern?
wmcarpenter
“Bumper of my SUV” ? seriously?
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
Why do you guys think this is soo good?
Okay.
Though Gareth Thoma’s was much more meaty and interesting.
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
Thomas’s
Devon
Well…Good for her.
I don’t care-like, at all-so I won’t be buying her book, and I loathe country music so I won’t be rushing out to get any of her albums…But still, good for her.
jeffree
Very good interview. She put into words what many of us LGB people from “flyover” areas, deep in country-western music territory face when “moseying out” of the closet. Or “two stepping out…” That’s southern speak!
She will prob be dissed by some diehard CW fans, may lose airtime in Nashville/ “deep South” BUT might gain some new fans and get played on some stations that wouldnt have played her music otherwise.
And, dare I say, it won’t hurt that “she’s a looker!” kd lang never fit the Nashville vision of what a female artist should look like. Chely does.
p.s. Your “country speak” lesson is now over for the afternoon.
Jeremy
On a contrast to her unknown status, she’s one hell of a beautiful lesbian.
Kent
@Viral:
Because religion is a DELUSION. I wish I could just let people believe whatever they want – but as gay people, it has not exactly worked out that way. The reason why we do not have equality is because of RELIGION. So yes, I will call the bullshit of the invisible guy in the sky whenever I want.
wannabegay
i have a question: why country songs don’t have lots of views on youtube? maybe because people that listen to country music don’t know what internet is?! hahahaha!
Viral
@Kent: And bigotry to battle bigotry is just as fail. Hating the group that hates you won’t get you anywhere any faster. It’s still not yours or anyone else’s place to deny someone a means a mental solace and self-sanctuary.
The aspects of the religions you loathe are brought on by distortions of more benign beliefs. They are basically full of hateful people like yourself, except you got stuck in the minority.
Bill Perdue
@Viral: Just as having a robust hatred for racism and racists is not ‘racism in reverse’ being opposed to christer supersition and bigotry is not bigotry.
It’s really a disservice to our communities to say so.
Religion is the enemy.
jason
I think this is a marketing ploy combined with a playing of the victim card. Does she want to increase her sales?
Viral
@Bill Perdue: Not every religion is “opposed” or condemning of homosexuality. And there are plenty of Christians, Catholics, Jews (possibly the occasional Muslim, but they’d probably die for saying so), Mormon and whatnot who realizes that the hate their constituents spew is morally wrong, but the majority barks louder. Two forms of hatred clashing only leads to more hateful behavior, thoughts to words, words to violence.
And it’s not fair to deprive someone of something that holds a positive impact in their lives. For all the hatred I may personally face from some twisted religious sect, I’d rather some other person have some belief that allows them to do something that would better suit the world. I can live without getting married if a doctor’s belief in God allows him to save a hundred people or a soldier’s prayer to Jehova gives him the strength to put his own life on the line to protect the security of a nation.
Fitz
I love KD Lang too– but she was never an out country artist. She was a country artist, and then she was an out artist.
Ricky
@Kent: It is not your place to say who believes what. You give yourself too much power. That said, I am very much anti-religion, but I do believe in God. I have taken a “cut out the middle man” approach and it works for me. Not all religion is bad but I do believe that all religion, just like anything else, is corruptable.
Still, it is not my place to say “I can’t let people believe.” Get off your high horse buddy. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name.
Ricky
@Fitz: can’t the same, then, be said for Chely.
Markie-Mark
Christianity is for the feeble-minded.
Viral
@Ricky: amen brother!
@Markie-Mark: so is name-calling 😛
Cassandra
“Because religion is a DELUSION.”
Prove it. C’mon, prove that the majority of all human beings, who experience the Divine, are wrong, while the tiny 1% who do not, are somehow right.
Your claim is degrading and dehumanizing, Kent. You are exactly as much a bigot as any homophobe. They claim that homosexuality is a mental illness, you claim that spirituality is a mental illness. Same thing.
“I wish I could just let people believe whatever they want – but as gay people, it has not exactly worked out that way.”
Homophobes say exactly the same thing about homosexuality. They can’t just let homosexuals be.
“The reason why we do not have equality is because of RELIGION.”
No. Some religious beliefs have been used to excuse anti-homosexual prejudice, but GLBTQ people do not have equality because it is in human nature to oppress others.
The reality, Kent, is that most of the people who have ever worked for civil equality for anyone, including GLBTQ people, were/are people of faith, working for equality as a manifestation of their spiritual values.
“So yes, I will call the bullshit of the invisible guy in the sky whenever I want.”
Like any bigot, you assert that you will malign and dehumanize others without conscience or restraint. Guess that just proves to everyone that atheists are capable of morality on their own, eh?
Bill Purdue
“Just as having a robust hatred for racism and racists is not ‘racism in reverse’ being opposed to christer supersition and bigotry is not bigotry.”
Your dishonest comparison also demonstrates that atheism and morality do not necessarily go hand in hand.
Christianity is not the equivalent of racism. But atheism actually is.
See, Bill, your prejudice against people of faith is based on who they are, and only on who they are. You disregard the facts, you disregard their testimony, you disregard their humanity, in favor of a construct of lies and distortions, nonsense and hate. You don’t have proof for your rejection of the existence of God and the testimony of people of faith about God, you only have your contempt for people of faith.
Atheism is only a prejudice, it is based entirely on the assumption that a certain group of people are intrinsically and automatically wrong – delusional is the way Kent put it – not because of any evidence whatsoever, but solely because of who they are.
Nothing supports or proves atheism, it is simply the rejection of other people’s testimony. Just like homophobia is the rejection of homosexuals’ testimony about their emotional and sexual life, atheism is the rejection of people of faith’s testimony about their spiritual life.
You are just venting yet another vicious and dehumanizing, anti-social prejudice, Bill.
Again, the reality is that it has been people of faith, Christians in the U.S., who have been the most numerous and generous supporters of equal rights for GLBTQ people, people of color, women, the poor. Atheists have contributed very, very, very little to support equality for anyone other than themselves.
“It’s really a disservice to our communities to say so.”
Oddly inverted ethics there, Bill. Since the truth is that maligning people of faith is prejudice, you are saying that truth-telling is a disservice. Again, how are you demonstrating that atheists have morals?
“Religion is the enemy.”
So said the Stasi in the former regime in East Germany, and proceeded to oppress and persecuted the entire population.
Prejudice and ignorance are the enemy, Bill, and you are actively promoting both.
Bill Perdue
Viral@Viral: I might (but I doubt it) feel a bit more sympathy for the psychiatric woes of people of supersition and madness if they just stop doing this:
[img]http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/0808/the-catholic-church-demotivational-poster-1219770345.jpg[/img]
and this in Iran
[img]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/86/216633009_3e99300469.jpg?v=0[/img]
and this in Africa
[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SXh9eUh5Osw/SfCn_gZr0KI/AAAAAAAAEQk/kjbqepWzWS0/s400/assassinato_homossexual_al_daniel_2008.jpg[/img]
and especially if we could just get them to stop murdering our children:
[img]http://www.oasismag.com/files/lawrenceking2.jpg[/img]
Bill Perdue
@Cassandra: See above ^^^^^
Cassandra
Ricky
What people like Bill and Kent who vilify religion conveniently forget is that humans can and have found a way to corrupt just about everything.
Take science. It has been used to justify genocide, through the “science” of eugenics, and many of its most influential advancements came through the search for ways to kill people.
Big Tobacco corrupted some scientists, who created corrupt science, to conceal the intrinsic health risks of smoking, while engineering ways to increase the addictiveness of tobacco, and researching psychology to create more effective ways of hooking new victims.
Philosophy has been used to manipulate societies and individuals to justify all kinds of attrocities. And the Stasi in East Germany showed what atheism unleashes.
Art has been used in propoganda of every medium, corrupting the communicative power of visual and auditory medium to foster hate, spread prejudice, incite violence.
A knife can be used to save a life on an operating table, or take one in a dark alley. We use electricity to teach and to kill, use the internet to inform and entertain, and to malign and vilify.
And sex. Good grief. Some people exploit sex and their sexual partners to make a living, dominate others, glorify their ego.
The atheist argument that religion is bad because it has been used to justify harming others would, if applied in the pursuit of a rational position rather than a prejudice, mean that everything humans have ever created, recorded, invented, or accumulated, is wrong. And that includes the invention of atheism, for the overt persecution of religion in East Germany, and the horrors inflicted by the Stasi prove that even atheism can be used to inflict extraordinary crimes against human beings.
Of course, science and the arts and religion and philosophy, knives and electricity and sex, have also all been the inspiration and the driving force for good. Tremendous good, including eroding oppression against women, people of color, the poor, those with disabilities, and people of color. It is extremely easy to find examples for all of the above.
It is, however, very difficult to find any benefit coming from atheism. People have been asking here, and elsewhere, for even one example of an atheist organization that is actively working to create civil equality for GLBTQ people, and no one has posted even one example.
Yeah, there are atheist groups working for atheists rights, just like there are white supremacist groups working for their rights. But where are the atheists manning soup kitchens feeding the poor, or rallying, as het Christian ministers did before Stonewall, for gay rights?
jason
I’m sorry to say this but I think Chely is simply using her “outing” as a marketing ploy. Anyone who mixes with an agent to announce their coming out is not necessarily doing it for the benefit of gay people. Rather, they’re more likely to be doing it for the benefit of themselves and their agent.
Can I just say to Chely the following: good luck to you but I don’t consider you to be representative of gay people in general.
Cassandra
Bill Perdue
Your post, No. 40, is no different from the homophobe who trots out NAMBLA or some gay criminal, or leathersex at Folsom Street Fair, or anything else he disapproves of, and then saying ‘This is what Gay is”.
A truly vile human being posted a link, on a So Cal newspaper discussion, directing people to an extreme s&m gay pornography site, and titled it “The real homosexuality”. Your post 40 is the exact same thing.
You’ve cherry-picked a few examples from the totality of human experience and claimed those few incidents define 99% of humanity.
So, we’re back to the attrocities of the Stasi, last century’s purest example of systemic atheism. And that atheist who shot up a church, during a children’s program, killing a number of people.
All you’ve done, Bill, is provide more evidence for the hypothesis that atheists are incapable of behaving in a ethical or moral way – and demonstrated that atheism is a prejudice because it relies on the established tactics of all other prejudices to defend itself.
Frankly, your ugly little picture game was nothing more than a dismissal, the equivalent of the ugly pictures that anti-abortionists use. Their behavior is anti-social and abusive, and so are your posts.
You know what is missing from your posts, and those of most atheists on the ‘net?
Besides honesty and accuracy, I mean.
A sense of respect for the humanity of anyone who doesn’t share your hatred for people of faith. There’s no sense of remorse or shame, no sense that there is any vile thing too vile for you to post. There’s no genuine empathy, even the victims of violence are just things for you to use as ammunition. Your posts demonstrate no sense of any moral or ethical system, no consistent right and wrong.
You don’t even respect those you are vilifying enough to formulate a rational, honest rebuttal to the points we’ve raised.
Yeah, your belief system, that 99% of humanity is wrong about their own lives but you are just magically right, is so superior, you had to lie by distortion and exclusion.
AlanReeser
She came out. Big deal. So did I and many others without the publicity and the story. How many of us know of others who were in the same exact situation and did not live to tell about it? The more people who come out, including entertainers, teen gay suicides may slow down.
Bill Perdue
@Cassandra: It’s just not possible to ‘vilify’ the cults, their bigotry and murders or their superstition.
Or their ‘imaginary friend’.
Religion is humankinds greatest tragedy.
http://jesusneverexisted.com/
Viral
@Bill Perdue: Any mass of straight people religious or not have said the same thing about gays. How are you any different?
hephaestion
Chely said there was never a gay country singer. I guess she never heard of k.d. lang or Sid Spencer, who was spectacular by the way.
Why does she spell her name with a CH yet pronounce it like it is SH? Stuff like that drives me buggy.
Anyway, nice interview. Best wishes, Chely.
JanetD
@Puma: Thanks, Puma. Great story.
Cassandra
“It’s just not possible to ‘vilify’ the cults, their bigotry and murders or their superstition.”
This demonstrates the intrinsic dehumanization of atheism. Bill has completely rejected as nonexistence the very presence of the billions of people of faith whose lives, experiences, opinions, study, work, suffering and joy, make up religion.
For Bill, we people of faith do not exist as human beings, merely things in his constructed vision. And how he rails about bigotry and superstition as he screams his own bigotry and superstition about most of humanity.
Remember Bill, that while homophobes hate 10% of humanity, since GLBTQ people are about 10%, atheists like you hate 99% of humanity, since 99% of humanity participate in some form of religion. All those Wiccans, and Native Americans, Jews and Jains, Buddhists and Taoists and Hindu’s, ancient peoples and modern, of every tribe and ethnicity, culture, time and place – their accumulated experiences of the Divine is, to you, a tragedy.
“Religion is humankinds greatest tragedy. ”
I can think of many human tragedies.
Like the Holocaust – oh, wait. That was an attempt to obliterate an entire group of people because of their religion, to wipe them and their religion off the earth. And Atheism is intrinsically, by definition, anti-semitic. So I can see how someone like Bill wouldn’t even consider the Holocaust to be a tragedy.
What are you going to do about this “tragedy” Bill, of people sharing their experiences and thoughts, feeling and ideas and beliefs and benefits? Round us up and kill us? I’ve seen enough atheists express their dream of a world free of religion to know just how dark and ugly atheism can be.
Oh well, according to Bill, religion, which has help inspire and cultivate humanity’s drive for civil equality, is worse than AIDS/HIV, worse than cancer, worse than slavery, war, corporate greed, worse than the Black Death, worse than starvation, worse than poverty.
Of course, it is people of faith who do the most to fight and end and counter poverty and starvation, so maybe Bill doesn’t consider those to be tragedies at all.
Never mind the fact that not only did religion inspire the revolt against slavery, it was the source of comfort and hope for enslaved peoples, and not just the African American experience of slavery. Never mind that religion has been the source of inspiration, and comfort and hope, for people fighting cancer, AIDS and other diseases, either as a caregiver or a patient.
Clearly, Bill has a completely different concept of right and wrong, harm and harmful, from the vast majority of humanity.
Some day, I hope to see signs of a healthy moral/ethics value system from an atheist, but clearly, Bill will not be the one.
Cassandra
Bill, just to summarize for you, to make the ugliness and hate in your claim unmistakably clear:
Religion is the accumulated experiences, testimony, thoughts and feelings, music and art and ideals of real human beings, most of humanity. It is something fundamental to their very identity and lives. Religion is people living their lives.
You are saying that the existence of most of the humans who have ever lived is a tragedy to you.
counterpoll
@Cassandra: I appreciate people of faith. Problem is that 97% of the orthodox, fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Mormons, & Jews who I have met wish me to become heterosexual or try to convert me, & fight against my rights try to marry, adopt, keep my job, or serve in the military forces. That’s why many GLB persons reject religion: we get thrown out of our familiies, our jobs, or our communities because we are LGB.
Can you say, in good conscience, that people of faith seek to help the LGB community? To honor or value us?
thank you. honestly, if you can explain any of this.
Cassandra
Counterpoll
“Problem is that 97% of the orthodox, fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Mormons, & Jews who I have met wish me to become heterosexual or try to convert me,”
Really, 97%? Can you document that or are you making up stuff out of thin air? Jews, particularly Orthodox ones, do not even engage in conversion. You are judging the entirety of people of faith by those you are most focused on seeing. Kinda like the way Porno Pete judges the entirety of GLBTQ people by the men in leather at the Folsom Street Fair.
Sure, you can say there’s nothing wrong with leather and I’d agree with you, but fundamentalist religionists would say there is nothing wrong with fundamentalist, though I argue that it is a form of idolatry. The principle is the same – judging an entire group of people by the subset you can find fault with.
Do you realize that most of the people who are fighting for your civil rights are people of faith? Atheists simply do not account for the approx. 50% of Americans who vote against anti-laws (approx being an average of the various props that have come up over the years). Most of the people who support civil equality for GLBTQ people are participants in one religion or another.
And frankly, many atheists on the ‘net admit that they either do support anti-gay proposals, or don’t vote at all either way. Even if every atheist always voted for GLBTQ rights, there is not enough of them to achieve civil equality for anyone. But they don’t all support gay rights; many atheists are as rabidly homophobic as fundamentalist Christians. And to make matters worse, on the ‘net, the most insistent and abusive defenders of anti-gay theology are not fundamentalist Christians, but atheists building a case against Christianity from the blood and bones of GLBTQ people.
Further, do you realize that fundamentalist religionists are only a subset of people of faith, and do not represent all people of faith, of any denomination.
“fight against my rights try to marry, adopt, keep my job, or serve in the military forces. ”
It is progressive, moderate and liberal people of faith, more than any other demographic, who are fighting for your rights, who fought for women’s rights, and the rights of people of color.
“That’s why many GLB persons reject religion: we get thrown out of our familiies, our jobs, or our communities because we are LGB.”
Don’t feed me that trope. Proportionately, GLBTQ people are only slightly any more likely to be atheists than heterosexuals are. Gay does not equal atheist, nor does athiest equal homosexual. Most gay atheists never participated in any religion.
People reject religion for the same reason people have any prejudice – to reject an entire group of people, making themselves feel superior in the process.
“Can you say, in good conscience, that people of faith seek to help the LGB community? To honor or value us?”
You are trying to require a monolithic response, an all or nothing situation, one where either all people of faith “seek to help” or none. That was a dishonest way to frame your request. So much for the good conscience in your request.
The reality is that on the issue of homosexuality, people of faith are divided into several groups. There are those who actively oppress GLBTQ people; not the majority of all people of faith, just the most visible portion. There are people who are on the fence. And there are people of faith who are actively fighting institutionalized prejudice against GLBTQ people. More and more, anti-gay legislation breaks close to 50/50, sometimes more one way, sometimes more the other, with about a third of eligble voters sitting out.
Not only is most of the work for GLBTQ civil rights being done by people of faith, some of the largest GLBTQ organizations are faith-based, like Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churchs. The UUC has explicit statements calling for civil equality for GLBTQ people, including marriage. In just about every denomination, there are individuals, congregations and clusters of congregations, plus at least two denominations, that actively work for civil equality for GLBTQ people, and teach that homosexuality is not intrinsically sin.
Can you provide evidence of even one atheist organization that is seek to create civil equality for GLBTQ people?
counterpoll
@Cassandra: Best of luck to you. I did not mean to cause you to rage at me. I meant you personally, no harm whatsoever. If that seemed implied in my message, then I humbly apologize.
I felt no kindness, no empathy, no acceptance in your reply.
What did you wish for me?
Rage? Hellfire? Damnation?
or Acceptance? Understanding? Good will?
Joey O'H
I am moved by Chely’s story. It’s like so many. It’s just as heartbreaking to hear the things that she thought about doing to herself. Just becasue she wasn’t the A List person we all thought was coming out, does not make her story unimportant.
Does it still bug me that she is promoting a CD and a Book timed perfectly with her coming out? yes. Nevertheless, her story is just as important as all of ours and the many yet to come out are. Good for her.
I am hoping with her new found celebrity she does something with it to help someone else.
wmcarpenter
This is the country music equivalent to Edwin McCain coming out.
SSCHIEFRSHA
@Blake: “This is a win for the GLBT community” What win? I’m yet to witness the day someone’s coming out actually prompts the repeal of a hateful law or the enactment of an LGBT inclusive law. Now THAT will feel like a win.
terrwill
What a bunch of hypocrites! Two days ago, everyone was saying “so what” and “who?”. And now everybody is praising her? Huh??? Slice it any way you want folks, it is still nothing more than a publicity stunt to revive a dead career. One hit, 11 years ago. Think about it.
Cassandra
Counterpoll
“Best of luck to you. I did not mean to cause you to rage at me.”
There’s nothing to indicate anger, much less rage, in my post. Your characterization is a smear job, an attempt to discredit what I posted by branding it with a negative emotion that is not expressed anywhere in that post.
“I meant you personally, no harm whatsoever. If that seemed implied in my message, then I humbly apologize.”
Now you apologize for something you were not accused of or challenged about. Again, you are trying to create a false impression about my post, rather than attempt an honest rebuttal to the material I posted.
“I felt no kindness, no empathy, no acceptance in your reply.”
What you felt, or did not feel, has no bearing on the matter.
“What did you wish for me?
Rage? Hellfire? Damnation?”
There is not a word to even suggest such things, yet you smear me with false insinuations, demonstrating a complete lack of integrity. I answered your post in good faith, and you malign my motives and character.
If anything, didn’t you direct rage at people of faith, judging all by the actions of fundamentalists? Their attitudes and behaviors are the least in alignment with Christ’s teachings, and remarkably similar to your own?
Since the material I posted was accurate, you chose to attack the messenger instead.
And for all the whining and self-created self-pity, you didn’t even bother to answer my question, though I answered yours.
Can you provide evidence of even one atheist organization that is seek to create civil equality for GLBTQ people?
You and your peers complain constantly about the prejudice inflicted on you by homophobes, and then turn right around commit the exact same evil against people of faith. You are no better and just as bad as any homophobe, counterpoll. You use exactly the same techniques, practice the same little games, judging by the exact same degrading standards, as any homophobe.
Fred Phelps is a bigot who targest homosexuals, you and bill are bigots who target Christians – the only difference between y’all is who you choose to hate.
yal
It’s not fair.
That so many of us should have to suffer such inner torment and turmoil simply for being what we are. Her story made me cry because it’s so common in our community. How many of our people have been indoctrinated to believe they are wrong, dirty, flawed, contemptible and condemned. They go lifetimes thinking this way, some escape and are free, but many languish in torment and false existences. They are enveloped with self-hatred, and agonize that they will be punished for being the ‘wrong’ kind of person. It’s not fair.
This is the western world, we live in societal models that we like to believe are more forward-thinking than those in other parts of the world. But there is still so much suffering. Of course, we suffer a lot less than those of us in countries where we are treated like human garbage and are executed, murdered or raped ‘straight’, but these different planes of suffering can be acknowledged without ignoring the ones we consider less brutal.
How many gay men and women in our society have given themselves up to live a lie; and are slowly being eaten from the inside by hollow lives in which they can never be truly happy? How many men and women feel the real fear losing someone they love by being honest about who they are? (and those that do often have to make a decisions and come to an acceptance that once they are honest, they can expect to lose that person forever) Why should we have to make these decisions?
How many gay men and women had to plan their coming out around whether or not that they had a place to stay because they knew that a family who once claimed to love them will now throw them out onto the street as if they were trash?
How many gay people believed they were broken, that they could be fixed; but no matter how many times they tried, time and time again, it didn’t work. And they thought themselves weak, or evil. Or for the religious, that their god hated them. How it must feel to believe you are hated my your god.
All of this agony, so much more that I haven’t even touched upon. It isn’t fair, any of it. I know this seems an extreme response to this story, but truly, it is a response to eveything that we have gone through.
Just hearing her talk about holding the gun, weighing her life, it reminds me of all the lgbt people who didn’t feel like living the agony anymore, who chose to end their suffering, which is reflected now in the grotesquely high suicide rates in our community.
I know this is not all lgbt people by a long shot. But it is enough. I know too, that things are improving, but I try to picture sometimes the collective suffering still going on, and it is so overwhelming I can’t breathe for it. We need more visible lgbt people for this reason (and if I hear 1 more straight person say ‘who cares’ to a celebrity coming out, i’m going to punch them in the face) I care, lgbt people care, because we need more voices out there, especially for our youth, and especially for the world we want to build in the hate we are working to make obsolete.
Sydney
Sorry if this sounds superficial but it’s so wonderful to see an attractive, gay celebrity woman as opposed to someone like Rosie O’Donnell who sort of scares me. Chely, you are hot!
terrwill
What a bunch of hypocrites! Two days ago, everyone was saying “so what” and “who?”. And now everybody is praising her? Huh??? Slice it any way you want folks, it is still nothing more than a publicity stunt to revive a dead career. One hit, 11 years ago. Think about it.
When one speaks the truth, one gets censored! So here is a re-post, the first of many!
James
Yeah, KD Lang was the very 1st to come out, but she also dropped country music like a pile of hot coals. KD is mostly known for her adult contemporary hit “Constant Cravings”. That is why she’s overlooked when speaking of country music. On the other hand, Chely’s hits were actually in the country music genre. Billboard charts mean everything and KD is considered “adult contemporary” while Chely is country.
the Wright move
Chely, as. straight woman with many gay friends, I just
want you to know how much your “coming out interview”
made me “LOVE” YOUR music and YOU even more!!!
My husband was having an affair with a co-worker
when “Jezzabel” came out…. Wow, 2001? And I’ve
loved that song and you ever since. That was my song!
I’m so sorry that you felt you had to wait so long to
feel able to live your life out loud, and proud of who and
what you are. To say those words… “What you are”, sounds
awful…. I don’t mean it like “you” or anyone is a “what”….. However,
I know many of my gay friends have felt at one time in their lives
that they were somehow something other than a human being.
No! We’re ALL just people…. We’re all who and what we are…
plain and simple…. down and dirty…. good or bad, right or wrong.
I’m so very glad I saw your interview…. One of the best I’ve ever seen!
The people who say you can’t be a Christian and gay at the same time…..
well, too, too bad!!! The Ten Commandments doesn’t say “do not be gay”.
However, they do say: Don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t covet thy neighbors
wife, respect your parents, and you know the rest.
So, Chely, please know the REAL Christians still, and always will
love you….. REGARDLESS of your sexuality!
Much love and luck to you my friend!!!!! Jezzabel is still my
FAVORITE song!!!!!
Madge in Franklin, TN ?????????????????????????????????