Georgia megachurch pastor and father of four comes out as a gay man to save gay teens from suicide

I re-arranged my newsfeed in the sidebar over the last couple of days to include headlines from five Leftist gay blogs: AmericablogGAY, Good As You, Joe.My.God, The Bilerico Project and Towleroad. I wanted to include Pam’s House Blend, too, but the feed from her blog is too large and stops all the others from loading. (I e-mailed her about why I didn’t include her blog so she would know there is no malice.) I put these in the newsfeed because I am just as interested in engaging the gay Left about conservatism, both as fiscal policy and as having the winning arguments for gay equality, as I am in engaging the Right about gay equality and the distinctions between the aspirations of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism.

So, thanks to AmericablogGAY and Towleroad, I saw the news video embedded above of Georgia megachurch pastor and father of four, Jim Swilley, coming out as a gay man with the support of his ex-wife, Debye, who urged him to be true to himself. Swilley says he is coming out now, after a recent rash of gay teen suicides, to try to save the lives of other teens.

Here is the video of Swilley’s 50-minute sermon in which he told his congregation he is gay and that being gay is something that he cannot change:

I missed noting the anniversary, but the contemporary gay equality movement began on October 6, 1968, when Baptist evangelical minister Troy Perry founded the Metropolitan Community Church. This means the gay equality movement’s foundation and first priority was a connection with God. I predict that Swilley is going to be amazed at his spiritual growth now that he is relating to God and his congregation as a whole and honest man. That kind of growth is magnetic, so for all the congregants he may lose, I believe he will attract more than enough good people to replace them.