Rev. Danny Cortez had spent over two decades as a Southern Baptist pastor, and as such was not supportive of homosexuality. When his son came out as gay in 2014, he had a monumental change of heart that would shake up his church.
Rev. Cortez decided he needed to preach a message of support for his son and to let his congregation know not only that he had changed him mind on the matter, but also why.
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“That morning I came to church, my blood pressure was super high. I felt so much stress, and everyone was wondering what’s going on,” Cortez told NPR‘s StoryCorps. “But I remember as I was speaking, I felt empowered like I hadn’t felt in such a long time. I knew that what I was sharing that Sunday was important.”
His son was there as well.
“I felt vulnerable,” Drew says. “I just remember thinking what was going to happen after this. This is our life now.”
Rev. Cortez recounted to his congregation when he learned his son was gay.
“I was driving my son Drew to school. And he turned over to me and he says, Dad, I’m gay. I remember, I just turned around and I hugged him so hard. I said, I love you so much, son,” he said.
He also recounted stories of other parishioners coming to him over the years to tell him of their same-sex attractions. He explained that over the years he he had expressed empathy for them but that he would tell them that the scripture was clear, and they had to remain celibate.
“For the rest of your life, you should never fall in love,” he said he realized he was telling them. “I always wondered why of all of God’s commandments, why is this the one commandment that is different from all of the other commandments that seemed to impart life. This one the one that just created so much self-hatred. It was the sense of people feeling like they were imprisoned. A sentence of life with no chance to love.”
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Rev. Cortez knew that he was risking his position in the church by speaking out against the accepted doctrine of the church.
He said that when he was asked how it felt to know he might be terminated, he said he felt at peace and that his heart had been “enlarged.”
The church split over the sermon. Rev. Cortez started a non-denominational, LGBTQ affirming church along with other supportive members of the church.
Listen to Danny and Drew tell their story to StoryCorps below, as well as Rev. Cortez’s full sermon and Danny’s coming out video.
Watch Rev. Cortez’s sermon, “Why I Changed My Mind On Homosexuality” below.
Watch Danny Cortez’s coming out video below.
jheryn
I don’t understand why a loved one has to come out for these people to “change their minds”.
I have never believed that God hates gays. I believe that is the homophobia of the people in God’s house, not God.
I have gone to church since I was young and still do. I go to a church where LGBT people are accepted and they believe that God loves all people not just straight ones.
It is pretty obvious to me as a believer that all those homophobic, “loving”, church goers will answer for their hatred and cruelty one day.
Sluggo2007
@jheryn: Just for the record, I understand that you were brainwashed all your life by religious people (your parents, the pastor), but allow me to let you in on a little secret: Just as there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, there is also no such thing as God. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
GayEGO
Well then there now, just another example how a person, religious or not, can learn and evolve, in this case the father learned from his son. It is because over the years people are learning that we live just like they do and are not a threat to them. Ever the early 1970s when Science announced that we are not mentally disordered and are a part of normal civilization, people have gradually changed their thoughts about us and are supporting us. This is why today, Marriage Equality is the law of the land. Of course, there are still those who refuse to think and learn, but they will fade into the past.
Richpontone
If you know not Love, you know not God.
I think that this verse is in The Bible.
jheryn
@Sluggo2007: I will let you in on another secret. I (and the majority of everyone living I suspect) will never put any stock in what a faceless forum poster named “Sluggo” believes.
Oh, and it is belief BTW. You don’t believe there is a God. I do. So don’t be sorry. It most certainly is NOT the way it is. It is just the way it is for you.
Believe what you want. I’ll do the same despite your puerile, snide, and patronizing attempt to sway me differently.
Curtispsf
@Sluggo2007: There’s NO need to shit on someone else’s picnic table just to satisfy your own mean spirited soul.
Chris
So let’s imagine that pastors and other people can learn to be accepting without the 2×4 up side the head of their own kid being gay. What a concept!
Hussain-TheCanadian
@jheryn: Darling he needs to sooth his own doubts by having the need to keep on repeating “there is no god” every chance he gets.
OzJosh
@Richpontone: Anyone offering up quotes like this either hasn’t read the bible, or has chosen to ignore 95% of what the “good book” actually says in order to manufacture a sanctimonious positive interpretation. The God of the Bible is a hateful, misogynistic, sado-masochistic, genocidal sociopath. For every quotation you can find along the God Is Love lines – and most of them are highly selective and ignore immediate context – there are entire chapters that demonstrate only that the christian god is a despicable tyrant.
Jack Meoff
I’m glad this father reacted the way he did rather than disown his son or send him to conversion therapy but if it wasn’t for the church he would never have had those negative views about homosexuality in the first place. This blind faith that people have that god exists is baffling to me especially in the modern age but what’s more confusing to me is how people can’t see that the churches are manipulating them to serve their own agenda.
Kangol
@OzJosh: Not the Jesus of the New Testament. The Four Gospels are mostly free of the “hateful, misogynistic, sado-masochistic, genocidal” discourse found elsewhere in that book. Christianity is based on the life of Christ, which is told in the four Gospels, and yet so many ministers, who should know better, seem to ignore most of what’s in them, particularly the Gospel of Matthew.
ted72
@jheryn:
I respect your belief that there is a god. I’ll fight for your right to belief in your god. I’ll fight for the rights of others in their beliefs in their gods.
Personally, I don’t believe in any gods. You’re probably, in the words of Dan Savage, a NALT (not all like that). You need to speak loud and louder and louder and louder before your voice (the voice of the NALTs) to drown out the majority of xtians that hate and want to kill us. I think that’s what Sluggo meant to say.
jheryn
@ted72: I appreciate the comment but I don’t think that is what he was trying to infer.
As Hussain-TheCanadian said, he likes to be able to say “There is no god.”
Also, he is offensive in the way he addresses people.
I most certainly am a NALT. I try to speak out with every opportunity. As you can tell with my reply to Slug, I have no problem standing up for what I believe.
highestbidder
@Chris: you don’t have to imagine it, it’s happened daily since the beginning of time.
SFHandyman
I think we need to think about moving forward and not congratulating pastors and parents for accepting their kids, but expecting them to be accepting. I shouldn’t have to say “Thank You” or “Way to go” when a parent announces they aren’t rejecting their children.
(I haven’t watched the pastor’s hour long video.)
Richpontone
@OzJosh:
Sorry but my Bible Verse Quote is 1 John 4:8, so i do know the Bible.
Sorry that your Anger made you a Troll who is Blind.