April 29th saw the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) hold its annual general meeting in Cardiff. The AGM was also the 30th birthday of the movement.

FFLAG was present at the event. Sue Allen, Chair of Trustees was invited to be a member of a discussion forum around “today’s challenges.” This concentrated on the rise of fundamentalism and the problems this has created.

Following the business of the AGM and the forum the LGCM celebrated its birthday with a huge cake that was sliced up and shared among the attendees. The meeting then broke up for a choice of workshops.

FFLAG ran one of the workshops. “Love is all you need” was delivered by Bruce and Janet Kent from Bristol Families and Friends.

Below is the transcript of Janet’s story which moved some of the audience to tears and provoked many questions and comments.

I grew up in a Christian family. Although it was loving, it was also very legalistic and I was brought up to be obedient and not question things.

When I was seven my parents went to a church where they asked the elders to pray for me and when I went to the doctor’s shortly afterwards they informed my mother there was no sign of the hole in my heart which had previously caused me to be out of breath and unable to walk very far. This convinced me from an early age that God was real and that the church we were in had all the answers and that the Bible was infallible. The church I grew up in had a big emphasis on keeping yourself untainted from the world and not trusting science.

I was a true believer and my desire was to go to Bible College and serve God somewhere. I did go to a Bible College and met my husband there.

I don’t remember much being said about homosexuality in church – I don’t think it really got mentioned, but I somehow knew it was completely wrong and the Bible taught against it. Also, due to my distrust of the “world” and along with that, experts in their fields, I would never have watched any TV programmes about new understandings about homosexuality – in fact I would have quickly switched channels.

We have five children, three sons and two daughters. I truly believed it was impossible for me to have a gay child. I thought, from reading Romans 1 that it was a choice and that if you were Christians and brought your children up with Godly values they would be protected from that kind of thing. In fact, it never entered my head!

Bruce found out about our son before I did. In fact, one day in the summer of 1999 he just felt a strong impression that seemed to come out of the blue, these words, “Our son is gay, God is good.” Bruce then waited until February 2000, when our son (who was then 18) came out to him before telling me this. He told me to sit down as he had something to tell me. I was totally shocked! My first reaction was to run and tell my son I loved him, but also to ask him where we’d gone wrong – what awful sin had we committed and to try to work out how to get things fixed, delivered.

I was distressed to realise that my son knew from around age 11 that he was different, had hoped it was a phase he was going through, and later had prayed he’d be delivered from it. He had been going through something on his own for years and thought he might never be able to tell anyone. I’d hoped I was a good mother and yet I had been totally ignorant of all of this.

Bruce and I went to visit a church leader we admired and who we thought had some experience in this area. He is a lovely man and in many ways very wise, but I now differ from him in the area of homosexuality. At the time, he advised us not to say the word “gay” and told us they had been able to help a young man become straight and he was about to be married. I came back very encouraged and believing everything would be ok. I determined not to say the word out loud. This certainly didn’t help me to move forward.

I wish I could say all my concerns were for my son but that wouldn’t be true – I also acted very selfishly because I cared desperately about what others thought and felt people in church would judge us.

I’m not sure how I would have acted had I been on my own, because these last few years have been a huge learning curve, but I’m married to someone who constantly challenges what I’m thinking and encourages me to question everything. As you heard from my background, this is not how I would be naturally.

Over the next few years, it became obvious to Bruce and myself that our son was in fact gay and that he wasn’t about to change. I read loads of things on the internet, devoured all sorts of books and realised that there is another side to all the testimonies of people who claim to be changed. I realised that for a gay Christian, “to love your neighbour as yourself” is a very a hard thing to do, if you despise yourself.

I’ve questioned my whole belief system in recent years. I’ve had doubts about my faith and the Bible. And I’m still very much on a journey. However, time and time again, those words, our son is gay, God is good have come back to me. I believe God is in the middle of all of this.

Someone asked me, “If you could change things, would you want your son to be straight?” If you’d asked me a few years ago, my answer would have been a definite YES. However, today, I can speak differently because I recognise that this is an aspect of my son that makes him who he is and I love him. Also, I count it a privilege to be here today. I would to this day be totally ignorant about the prejudices against gay people.

Just over a year ago, Bruce and I went along to Bristol Families and Friends. Actually, Bruce had wanted to go along well before that, but I was still working through lots of stuff and probably was still going through some denial. I must say going along, was one of the best decisions we’ve made. I found a group of people who understood and accepted us. The first time I went along I think it would have been okay if I’d just cried the whole time because there’s been no expectation that I have to act in a certain way but just be myself and that is a very healing thing.

By: Janet Kent

Due to lack of space in this issue Bruce’s story will appear in the next edition of FFLAG News.

For more information about LGCM please visit www.lgcm.org.uk