Nigerian gay pastor Rev. Jide Macaulay writes about acceptance

Another gay post…lol. You guys like to read and
argue about this stuff that's why I keep bringing it.
So anyway, Reverend Rowland Jide Macaulay used
to run a secret gay church in Ojodu Berger Lagos
called House of Rainbow Fellowship. He relocated
abroad some years back after a major newspaper
did a story on his homosexual church and he
started to get threats. He's still running his gay
church in the UK and has been speaking out
publicly against the recently passed anti-gay law in
Nigeria.
Rev. Jide Macaulay recently penned an emotional
article about being rejected by his father (pictured
above with him) when he came out as a
homosexual in 1994 and his acceptance of his
lifestyle many years later. See the article after the
cut…
Towards Full Acceptance – By Rowland Jide
Macaulay
I am writing this article to share my story with
people who want to reconcile sexuality, faith, and
family. It is a sequel to "My Father, My Faith and
My Sexuality: The Dialogue" (in Q-zine's first
issue). Readers of that article will understand how
much I have looked forward to visiting Nigeria
again after years of estrangement. That long-
postponed visit finally took place in January 2011,
after a three year absence. This is the experience I
want to share with you now.
Some background first. I came out as gay in 1994
after a troubled heterosexual life. My coming out
was a disaster of, you might say, Biblical
proportions. I was hated and denounced on mainly
religious grounds, called a sinner, a defiler, an
abomination, etc.
When my family found out I was gay, many of my
siblings stopped speaking with me. My mother was
the only one who comforted me. With my father, it
was three years of hell. I had to face the fact that I
could lose him. I wondered, as a person of faith,
what my "heavenly Father" would do if my earthly
father could react with such hatred.
Many people at the House Of Rainbow Fellowship in
Nigeria (and a few more outside Nigeria) have met
my Dad. He is a wonderful, typical Yoruba man, but
when my "gay church" hit the headlines in 2008,
he was caught unawares in a Nigerian media frenzy
that nearly crippled his reputation as a high-profile
pioneer of African Theology.
I believed that I was wonderfully made, created in
the image of God. My only answer was prayer and
more prayer. "My Father, My Faith and My
Sexuality: The Dialogue" gives an account of the
long healing process between my father and me,
culminating in our reconciliation at a conference on
faith and sexualities in South Africa in November
2009.
By 2011 we were ready to see each other in Nigeria
again. As we sat down for lunch on Victoria Island
in Lagos at the beginning of the year, my father
announced, "I am pleased that I am having lunch
with my gay son." Even though I knew we were
father and son again, I almost fell out of my chair.
This is what we all need to hear as we struggle with
our relationships, especially with parents and
families. If we are not loved at home, we can never
find love abroad. But my experience shows that
even if being LGBTI is poorly understood in Nigeria,
one day those who reject us will accept and
celebrate us.
As far as I can remember, I have always been gay,
but my first awareness of it was at about the age of
seven. I was interested in being female. All the
roles girls played were of great interest to me. I
wanted a boy to cuddle me in games such as
Father/Mother or Husband/Wife. I had no names to
describe these feelings, but they were deeply
rooted in my understanding and feelings.
At 14, I experienced my first same-sex love, but
with my upbringing, I could only react with
confusion, guilt and personal rejection, feelings
that followed me well into adulthood. Growing up in
the 1980s in Nigeria, there were no visible gay role
models to provide assurance or comfort.
Still, I am grateful for my upbringing in a traditional
African Christian family with no shortage either of
love or strict parenting. My only heartache was my
sexuality, which, sadly, I could not share with
anyone in my family or religious community. I was
forced to carry the burden alone for most of my
young adult life.
In the mid 1980s, I went to the United Kingdom
and plunged into a new environment with a
strange culture, but I made my home in the
Nigerian expat community. With strong Nigerian
social customs, ethics, traditions and religious
focus, it was like a replica of Nigeria. Except, of
course, that we were in the UK, surrounded by a
much more diverse approach to both private and
public lives that I could not ignore. I was a very
confused young man. I spent most of my time
praying for healing and deliverance from my
homosexual feelings, yet the more I prayed the
more confused I became.
In 1987, I met the woman who was to become my
wife and bear me a son. In all this obscurity, I
decided that I should marry this woman I had fallen
in love with. I hoped my gayness would be cured
when I married, and so in 1991 I stood at the
marriage registry taking my wedding vows. I had
no one to talk with. I could not approach the
Nigerian community on such a delicate and, as I
thought, shameful matter.
Marriage, even fatherhood, needless to say, did not
dissipate my feelings for other men. Nothing
changed. I had only managed to join the hierarchy
of married Africans. I had promised to satisfy,
honour and cherish my wife, but married life soon
became a nightmare. It took just three years before
the relationship broke down. I hated myself more
than anyone hated me. I had done what no one
should ever do.
My life felt like a bad dream and a plague on
society, but all I could do was leave my community
and religion behind and go in search of who I was,
all the while with responsibility for a young life I
had helped to create. At the time of my divorce, my
son was just two years old.
The bitterest part was that the church and the
religious community I had cherished and adored
were the first to ostracise me. Indeed, the
bitterness was too foul to swallow. This was the
beginning of a love-hate relationship with Nigeria,
Nigerians and the church. My family's discovery of
my sexuality came later and was the worst of all,
when both my father and my son turned against
me.
As a person of faith, my focus was always
reconciliation, first with God and then with the
people who mattered most to me. It took me
several years to come out to my close family
members, friends and colleagues. Each step bears
its own mark of pain and anguish. I was psychotic
at one point. It was difficult for me to trust anyone.
I was ill-treated from one African Christian
community to another whenever it was discovered
that I was gay.
Yet I knew I was a "child of the living God." The
more strongly I held on to this belief, the more I
walked towards my healing. I also found a Christian
community, the Metropolitan Community Churches
(MCC) movement, that accepted and welcomed
LGBTI people of faith. It was a joyful experience,
and I revelled in this new community, but outside
of it I still had to deal with discrimination, not only
because of my sexual orientation but also due to
racism.
However, my faith only grew stronger, and I had no
intention of giving up. I knew there were many
people like me, in Africa as well as in Europe. I went
for further theological training with the MCC, and in
2006 I founded the House Of Rainbow Fellowship in
my native country, the first Christian denomination
to welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and
intersex people in a country hostile to all of these.
I spent the next two years in Nigeria building the
House of Rainbow and, by September 2008, we
were thriving. Indeed, we became a household
name, but for all the wrong reasons!
The hatred and insecurity these harmless
initiatives created were intense. Some of us were
threatened with death, and many of our members
suffered rejection and violence. Some fled the
country abroad. My home was vandalised, and my
entire family were threatened for my actions.
Leading religious leaders and politicians spoke of
me with hatred and incredible malice. But we had
grown a movement of LGBTI Christians in a hostile
nation, and there was no going back.
At the same time, I got more involved with my
father's organisation, spent more time with him
and introduced as many of our LGBTI members to
him as I could, so that he got to meet many LGBTI
people. I became part of his daily life again, and he
was my mentor and advisor on many issues, my
first port of call when it came to challenging
conservative theological rhetoric and getting
political advice. I spent invaluable time with him,
learning from his wisdom.
I also seized this opportunity to raise the issue of
homosexuality and the church and to search for
answers to the religious community's exclusion of
LGBTI people. I studied theological texts that spoke
to the issues. I laboured intensely, debating these
matters with my father, whom I respect dearly and
consider a great thinker.
However, in 2008 I was forced to flee Nigeria. My
father was the first to tell me it was time to leave
the hostility behind. He even promised to clear up
any mess I had to leave behind. I was amazed he
was willing to help me in my dark moment.
Our long dialogue paid off further when he agreed
to attend the conference in South Africa that I
wrote about in the last issue of Q-zine. At the
conference, to my amazement again, he revealed a
new openness to the inclusion of LGBTI people in
the church.
But I had been forced to return to England
shrouded with hatred, feeling cheated out of my
mission. Back in the UK, I embarked on a long
journey to raise and address issues of
discrimination based on sexual orientation and
gender identity. It is no longer a Nigerian battle but
one for the entire African continent, and I believe
our persistence will pay off in the end.
On returning back to the UK, I also focused on
rebuilding relationships with my family. It has not
been easy, but with the grace of God, I have been
making progress.
I have a son who is now a grown man. For years he
struggled to understand why his father was gay.
The numerous headlines and snide remarks from
the church and the Nigerian community did not
help. He was desperate to understand, but he was
surrounded by people sending messages of gloom
and doom.
Just before his 18th birthday, he told me he was
ashamed I was gay and regretted any connection
with me, that he was not proud to mention me or
tell people we are related.
This hurt me deeply, but whatever my son thought
about me, I knew that to deny my gayness was to
deny God. As a person of faith, I have to believe
God will never give anyone a burden they cannot
bear, yet my son's statement made me almost lose
patience with God. Nevertheless I have managed to
stay firm in my spirituality and prayers. I believe
my "investment" in faith must one day pay off, so I
have rededicated myself to bringing the gospel of
inclusion to everyone.
In 2011, my son agreed to spend the Easter
weekend with me. It was the first time we had seen
each other in months, though we had spoken over
the phone and I had written him a few letters,
working towards understanding and reconciliation.
At our Easter reunion he told me that he and his
partner had discussed my sexuality and that he no
longer had a problem with it. I have pondered what
caused the sudden change of heart and must admit
I was a little confused about it and the prospect of
reconciliation after all this time. It was a shock that
the most precious people in the world, my father
and son, now both accepted me as a gay man, but
what a wonderful shock!
All I am sure of now is that it is never wise to allow
the insecurity of our families to cause us to be
estranged from them. Deep down, we will always
be part of these families, and everyone knows that.
Never give up on yourself or your family.
Reconciliation is possible. We just have to be
willing to pay the price towards full acceptance.
Sent From David Aniemeka