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Aug 15, 2014
British Christian singer and theologian, Vicky Beeching, who is a big star in the US Christian rock scene, came out as gay this week after years of denial and feelings of shame.
Beeching’s coming out is a wonderful thing and will really mean a lot to those of the Christian faith who struggle to reconcile their sexuality and their faith, hopefully others may arrive at a place of self-acceptance a little sooner than Vicky did – 35 years is a long time to deny who you are and we hope Vicky can breathe easier now. She came out after being diagnosed with a form of the auto-immune disease, linear scleroderma morphea, and decided that she would give herself the goal of coming out by the age of 35 because, “thirty-five is half a life. I can’t lose the other half. I’ve lost so much living as a shadow of a person.”
Beeching had never even met an out gay woman until she was 30, let alone had a relationship with someone. It was thanks to Stonewall Chief Executive, Ruth Hunt, that she met a few celesbians who had words of support and encouragement for her; Alice Arnold, Clare Balding and Jane Hill told her,” Be yourself and everything will follow.”
Coming out is a mostly scary experience but it’s ultimately a relief and a chance for many to really start living their lives and we hope Vicky got a taste of that before going on Channel 4 news recently in her first TV interview about her sexuality.
In an interview about coming out and working in the conservative, Christian music scene, Beeching spoke honestly about her worries of being ostracised because of her sexuality. Unfortunately, she was was being interviewed in a debate-style with homophobic pastor, Scott Lively. This is the man who advised the Ugandan government to push through the dangerous anti-gay bill. Thankfully, this has now been revoked.
Lively is a soft-spoken man with almost friendly tone, who uses his time in the program to quote bible verses, praises God and his power to change a person and references that his own sister is actually an ex-lesbian. Whether this is true or not, that she really feels she’s no longer gay, is her journey and now that Lively has revealed this about his sister, I’m sure people will start tracking her down to find out. Hopefully, she wasn’t subjected to any reparative therapies, something her brother is an advocate of.
Lively probably expected to barrel over Beeching with his smooth delivery, not needing to resort to shouting about fire and brimstone, but he seems unable to match Beeching’s intelligence and eloquent rebuttals – watch here:
Now that she’s out, proud and living a life that’s true for her, we have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of Vicky Beeching. It’s always great to see intelligent, articulate, outspoken gay women on TV, but what is still very much a concern is why on Earth Channel 4 decided to pit Beeching against such an opponent? She’s more than capable of handling herself in a debate with him, but was this more of a ploy by Channel 4 to talk about Uganda? Why not choose someone in the music industry, where they can accurately talk about the industry Vicky works in and the current climate there?
Emily is the Community Manager of Dattch as well a part-time film reviewer and full-time cookie monster. She can’t walk in heels, is a cross-breed of Essex girl and Londoner and makes cupcakes like nobody’s business. Find further nonsense from Emily on Twitter @moulder5000
