Sexvangelicals Newsletter 5/1: Coming Out in Evangelical Spaces
Listen to Adaline's album Dear Illusion on Spotify. You're welcome.
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One of the most common targets of Evangelical, Mormon, and Pentecostal (EMPish) communities in the 21st century are queer people. The moralizing of straight, married relationships places people who are attracted to folks of the same sex/gender and folks who are curious about sexual experiences with same sex/gendered people in terrible double binds.
Folks can accept and practice sexuality in alignment with their sexual orientation in the face of name-calling, loss of relationships with family members, and threats of violence.
Or they can squelch or hide their sexuality and behave in ways that align with the values of the religious community.
Plenty of folks, of course, attempt to do both at the same time, which leads to its own challenging relational outcomes.
Needless to say, as we’ll talk about in the next few weeks, coming out in EMPish communities carries a ton of undue emotional and relational pressure.
Podcast Episodes
Which gets us to this week’s episode of Sexvangelicals. We’re thrilled to have Canadian pop-artist Adaline join us this week.
Adaline’s song, Ghost, was featured on the show Wynonna Earp. Substack won’t let me upload that particular scene, unfortunately, but Adaline’s music video is pretty damn amazing.
Adaline is the founder of the nonprofit Bad Believer, which provides support and resources to queer folks who grew up in unsafe religious spaces. She talks with us about the challenges of coming out in an Evangelical system:
“It's such a vulnerable moment. Anytime someone has to unveil or be vulnerable in a way that feels like your body is shutting down, that’s how scary it is. I am very lucky because my parents showed up for me in a really beautiful way and never said to me that they now had this thing they had to carry.
But I felt it.
So that was part of the reason why I avoided coming out for so long, is because I felt like, “Oh, now all of these feelings of guilt and shame and having to disappoint or not being the gold star religious family.” Especially growing up as a minister's daughter and growing up a pastor's daughter.
That's such a huge part of it. You want to be like that shining beacon of what a family is.
And then to add salt to the wound in my brain, there was also this part of me that knew because of what I do for a living and the fact that I knew I needed to express myself through music, because if I can't do that, then I shouldn't be a songwriter. You have to write authentically. I also knew that there was going to be some kind of public reality in this, so I felt really bad about it.
They never said it. Thankfully. But I felt it. I carried that for a long time. And if you love your family, it's really hard to feel like you'd be potentially hurting them.”
Adaline will continue our conversation with us next week. Please download her two albums!
Picture of the Week
On Monday, Julia, her parents, and I went to the Keukenhof gardens. So many amazing pictures to choose from, but this one was the winner :)
Books That We’re Reading
Jeremiah’s Recommendations:
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor. Set in Delhi, India, Kapoor introduces us to the Wadia family, a mob-like entity that combines real estate mogul and an underground crime scene. Sunny is the heir—idealistic and reckless. The book rotates narrators, from Sunny to Ajay, who ends up being Sunny’s butler/bodyguard, to Neda, a journalist/love interest. When you read this book, remember it’s the first part of a trilogy. I cannot wait to read the other two sections in the coming years!
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. Cohen writes a fictional account of a Jewish family, the male partner who teaches at a fictitious Columbia, who is asked to host Benzion Netanyahu and his family (with nod to a young Benjamin Netanyahu). An insanely important picture into the royal dynasty of 20th/21st century Zionism. If you are going to protest what’s going on in Gaza, or are otherwise curious about and/or disturbed by the evolution of the Likud party, this should be required reading.
Let’s heal together!
Jeremiah and Julia