’Testify to Love,’ a religious song I’ve loved for years, makes a gay comeback.

I grew up Catholic. Not the repressive, anti-gay Catholic. The social -justice-seeking, loves-everybody Catholic.

I didn’t know the Catholic Church and some Catholics were anti-gay until I came out.

The coming-out process, which took several years for me, showed me that people don’t just hate gay people because they don’t like us, but also because their religious leader, religious family, or religious friend has told them that God and Jesus hate us. (I say gay because I am a gay man, but they hate all of us in the LGBTQ+ communities)

This was reaffirmed to me one evening when I was at dinner with two women I had met from work. I was a waiter, and they were customers. They were incredibly lovely, and I was excited to spend time with them outside of work. After dinner, one of them brought a Bible to the table, and as she set it down, said: “We wanted to have this conversation with you because we love you”.

Any person who is in our LGBTQ+ communities and has experienced this knows what comes next.

To paraphrase it: “We don’t want you to go to hell.”

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I am seated in the front pew. This is where I have learned I have to sit when at my church, where I can fully pay attention. Sitting further back means I lose focus on what the pastor is saying and get into people-watching.

I never considered myself a Christian. I was Catholic. But by this point in my life, I’ve begun saying I grew up Catholic and don’t consider myself Catholic any longer. Here at this MCC (Metropolitan Community Church), I am surrounded by a hundred plus other LGBTQ+ humans who’ve had similar experiences being dropped by their places of faith, their families, and friends … yet are fully welcome here.

I mean, fully welcome.

Our pastor gives his sermon, and just like many past Sundays, I have a lot to consider after listening to him.

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People of religion have done well trying to destroy anyone who disagrees with them or lives in a way that is different from how they live. They do this in the name of Jesus, someone I believe would have nothing to do with what they are doing.

These days, a lot of these people are called White Christian Nationalists. Their hate surprises me, still. Sometimes it puts a little fear in me. Not the fear of going to hell, the fear of what their hate speech will do to someone who is part of our LGBTQ+ communities, but is not out.

Some of these people won’t make it to being fully out. Some will die by suicide.

Others may survive, but without their families, who for their whole lives have talked about how much they love them. But not now.

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I came out when I was about four years sober. By this time, I had a new faith, one rooted more in a Higher Power than the God of my Catholic past. I had been to several different types of churches and hadn’t found the one. I had also come to terms that perhaps I wouldn’t find a church, that my faith would grow and thrive outside of those buildings.

In the late 1990’s, with over a decade of sobriety and a heart filled with love, peace, and gratitude, I came across the song “Testify to Love” by the Christian band Avalon. They were popular in evangelical communities, and I had found them through a friend who was a former evangelical.

I loved the song. I still listen to it. I had no idea that a band member had come out, but then, faced with leaving the band or going to anti-gay conversion therapy, he left the band. I’ll add here that I know nothing about what happened before or after that, and that I didn’t even know his name until last week.

Last week, he (Michael Passons) and country music star Ty Herndon, along with Melissa Greene, who was in Avalon with Michael, released a new version of “Testify to Love”. This version embraces loving everyone, and is especially meaningful to me as it’s sung by a trio that includes two out-and-not-going-back gay men.

It’s beautiful.

What’s even more beautiful is seeing dozens of videos on TikTok of former evangelicals who loved Avalon and love themselves, celebrating this new version of the song. Watching these videos has brought me to hardcore tears several times.

The more I look at TikTok, the more I feel so spectacularly happy to know there are that many other LGBTQ+ siblings out there who have struggled with religion and faith, and have survived and are thriving. Not perfect, but not living in that awful darkness, alone.

When I say many, I mean hundreds. Imagine how many are out there that haven’t posted to their social media, yet are sitting in a spot in their home, tears streaming down their face, grateful, while listening to this new “Testify to Love”.

All of this has brought me back to memories of dark days for me personally and even darker days for people I love. I know what conversion therapy does to someone. I know the toll of being disowned by family members who are supposed to love you no matter what. I realize how ignorant that sounds, but family love was the rock growing up. No matter what, you had your family.

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This morning, I had a moment with tears in my eyes as I watched another LGBTQ+ sibling share their experience of this new version of “Testify to Love.” My relationship with my Higher Power is strong, and it’s also different as I find my way through a seemingly different and challenging life as a 60-year-old gay man.

The gratitude is still strong. As is the love for myself. My authentic, gay self. I at least have these two things, and this helps me as I trudge through a changing life and a difficult world.

Faith is one of the parts of my life that I typically keep very private. The release of this new version of “Testify to Love” has made me want to write about it, which is exciting for me.

I am thinking of all my wonderful LGBTQ+ siblings and all of my amazing family and family of choice while I have a huge grin on my face and a heart and soul filled with love.

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Go vegan. Vote. Be kind.