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My mother was a teacher
and my father was a preacher.

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Our family lived in Florence, Alabama,

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a sleepy little river town
of Baptists and artists.

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Mostly Baptists.

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Florence is quintessentially southern,

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and growing up there
is Sunday lunches after church,

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Little League baseball
and high school homecoming parades.

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I made good grades, followed all the rules
and even played football.

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This made me a good southern son.

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From a young age,
we're taught to tell the truth,

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but no one teaches us to tell our truth,

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maybe an eating disorder
or some childhood trauma,

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or something simple like a love for art
in a world full of jocks.

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Nope. Nobody teaches us
to tell those truths.

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I began to uncover my truth
at an early age.

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It's a truth discovered alone,
grappled with alone, denied alone

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and, when you are young,
it feels like a ball of lead in the soul,

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both heavy and toxic.

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This football-playing
preacher's kid was gay!

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What do you think it would feel like
being a gay preacher's kid

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in the American south?

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Well, this was my two-ton truth,
but telling it was not an option.

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The good-old-boy ghost
of southern culture was clear:

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"Zip it up, lock it down. We don't talk
about that down here, preacher boy."

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I love my southern roots and I love
the people I went to church with,

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some of the best people on the planet,

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but, in 1988,

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a resolution was passed at a meeting
of our national church leaders,

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declaring homosexuality was
"a manifestation of a depraved nature,

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a pervasion of divine standards
and an abomination."

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This very fierce language was mimicked
by lots of other religious organizations

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in the 80s and 90s,

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and those strong words did not go
unnoticed by little ears in the pews.

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To be gay is to be a unique minority,

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living with a physiology you did not
choose, in a tribe not your own,

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amongst families that struggle
to understand you.

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And to be a gay person of faith
in the American south

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is its own unique challenge.

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Flannery O'Connor famously wrote,

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"While the south is hardly Christ-centered
it is most certainly Christ-haunted."

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To be gay in a community
steeped in religion

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is to know that you are welcome
only if you remain single and celibate.

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It's to feel forced to choose
between spiritual faith and earthly love.

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It's to beg God to change you,

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hoping for a golden ticket
into straightness.

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And so, I made my way through high school
and college with no dating, just denial.

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I was serious about my faith,

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hoping to one day discover
a tonic of spiritual disciplines

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that would cure me.

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And, in the meantime,
I perfected the art of numbing the pain:

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work, work, work,
nights out, big vacations

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and the continual incantation,

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"I don't need love, I don't need love,
I don't need love."

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Forget coping mechanisms.
I had built a coping machine.

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And it worked!

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Until it didn't.

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Some time around 30,

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I woke up and realized all of my friends
had moved on with their lives,

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matriculating into the world of wedding
dresses and children's birthday parties.

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My loneliness grew and,
as the sleepless nights began to add up,

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I eventually gave up:
I decided to stop hiding.

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And, through one painful
conversation after the other,

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I began to come out to friends and family,
most of whom were very religious.

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The conversations were tough at first.

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Red wine was my courage,
Pepto-Bismol was my peace.

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(Laughter)

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For years, I had imagined
the worst reactions,

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with people freaking out
and casting judgment,

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but, each time, every time,
I was met with love, and a tear,

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and one of those lingering hugs you give
someone who's been fighting a hard battle.

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And so, in my 30s,

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I finally, clumsily, stumbled my way
into the light of telling my truth,

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something I wish I'd done so much sooner.

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Many people seem to think

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that the religious folk of the south
are fueled by hate,

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but I know that's not true
because I know these people.

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They are wildly generous
and kind beyond belief.

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For centuries, they have been the ones
helping the poor in our neighborhoods

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and providing relief after disasters.

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We need our faith communities,

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and outsiders typecasting them as bigots
are peddling the fallacy of composition.

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Vocal zealots do not represent
the benevolent majority.

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I don't think our faith communities
have a problem with hate.

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I think we have a problem with love.

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We just haven't loved
our LGBT children well!

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(Applause)

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We've not loved our LGBT children well.

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We haven't listened.

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We've offered theology before empathy.

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We've protected a tabu that quietly
boils kids in their own shame.

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We haven't given them the space
and the grace that we give everyone else,

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and we've defended
disembodied spiritual doctrines

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while missing the actual
bodies in our pews.

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Kids in our religious communities
dare not speak their truth, out of fear!

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Many of them are struggling alone
and we need to ask ourselves the question:

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why is the word H-E-L-P so hard for them?

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Now, the good news is
that I see faith leaders rising up,

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changing the conversation.

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I see our churches pivoting,

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as they have so many times
across the centuries, towards love.

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I see the rhetoric being replaced
with a lexicon of grace.

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I see people of faith learning a sacred
song that keeps rhythm with orthodoxy,

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while shouting a chorus of love.

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And I see believers united,
reminding every child,

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"You are loved and you are lovely,
and your future is incredibly bright ."

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Thank you.

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(Cheers) (Applause)

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Thanks. Thank you.

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(Applause) (Cheers)