“I was at my lowest point, like, I was absolutely suicidal when I walked into (Vision),” she said. “The internalized negativity had just taken over. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. I didn’t know a way out because I hated myself, because that’s what I was taught, to hate a person who was gay.”
The south Georgia native described her upbringing in a “very Christian” Black evangelical home, where family members like her mother, her uncle and grandfather often stepped up to the pulpit as pastors.
“My mother was in labor with me on a pew at church. She had to leave church to go have me,” she explains, adding that between the ages of 18 and 24, she ventured outside of her family’s church to attend six to eight other churches.
At each church, McKinney became skilled at code-switching. She swapped her slacks for skirts and left no questions open when it came to her sexuality. But at Vision, McKinney said she no longer feels compelled to pretzel herself into a category to gain favor.
“I can actually be myself,” she said. “I can go to church and sit next to my wife, and no one’s going to be like, ‘What is this?’”
Four years ago, Hakim Asadi, 33, joined Vision after deciding to walk away from churches altogether in 2015.
Like McKinney, Asadi also grew up in a religious household where much of his community and daily activities centered around church life. The counselor and social worker grew up in a religious family in upstate New York, where his grandmother oversaw a church that she had founded in 1955.
Asadi said his family ties to the church did not shelter him from stigmas as people began to realize he was gay. He recalls hearing murmurs about him running through the pews during services.
“The first (feeling) that comes to my mind is shame,” he said. “There are parts of me that I wasn’t able to explore freely and openly and safely because it wasn’t talked about, it wasn’t accepted. It was frowned upon.”
Just by being himself, “I was ‘dying and going to hell,’” he recalled thinking.
Today, he is a minister in training at Vision and works for the office of the bishop. Being able to attend services with a previous romantic partner without getting judgmental looks affords Asadi mindfulness in church.
“There’s an essence of freedom here and shared freedom because church is about community,” he said. “I can look over and see my people.”
According to McKinney, although the majority of church members are LGBTQI+, Bishop Allen’s sermons have “nothing to do with whether or not you’re gay or straight.”
“I’ve never had to hear from his pulpit that something was wrong with me,” she said. “I hear the complete opposite: that God loves me. And God loves everyone.”
These days, the church’s missions are ever-expanding, with members like Asadi and McKinney providing education outreach to young people who are at risk.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
