She taught children that homosexuality is a sin. Today, the former pastor is a passionate LGBTQ+ activist

“In 2018, other members of the school where I worked as a pastor told me this,” Rachel tells about her daughter’s coming out in an interview for the magazine LGBTQ Nation. Aubree was ten years old at the time. A few years later, Rachel had another long session with the principal herself about her daughter’s orientation.

Apparently, a lot of psychological pressure from the environment led to the fact that at the age of fourteen, Aubree tried to suicide. And it was this moment that ultimately inspired Rachel to speak out against the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric she was forced to preach to teenagers at school. But it wasn’t a completely sudden insight, because Rachel already had some personal experience with the queer community.

When Rachel was growing up, her parents were heavily involved in Southern Baptist Church and pressured her to adhere to traditional beliefs, such as avoiding secular music.

“I remember having a Duran Duran CD that my mother got me. When we went to the grocery store, a song from that album started playing over the speakers. I looked at her and said that’s the music she stole from me” reveals her defiant childhood and adds that similar moments in her life made her realize that she needed to change her attitude towards faith.

But the change came only in adulthood, when she began to notice how her faith shapes her relationships with the people around her, especially with members queer communities. In her twenties, she left the church and her husband to raise her first daughter, Courtney, as a single mother. The only men in her life were two gay married couples whom she befriended and who helped her raise her daughter. She admitted that at the time her faith dictated the opposite, but she herself did not see anything wrong with homosexuality.

“I believed it because they convinced me that I had to believe it.”

However, when she remarried in December 1997, she felt compelled to return to the church to create a proper American family model. “I took my husband on a roller coaster,” he says with a laugh, adding that he was relieved when they finally got out of it.

The decision to rejoin the church was without any external pressure, but according to Rachel, she was not sufficiently prepared for it. One of the gay couples who helped raise Courtney once asked her point-blank if she thought his gay marriage was wrong. She looked at him and said, “It’s a sin, but I still love you.” “it’s a sin” he replied, after which he allegedly cut her out of his life.

“I’m not surprised at him,” Rachel comments simply.

But since then she is said to have grown significantly as a person and now interacts with the queer community in a way she never thought possible. She was helped by one person in particular, Love Bailey.

Love them trans woman, which owns Savage Ranch in Temecula. “It’s an amazing place. It’s a place where people can be free,” says Dennis. “Love fully accepted me and my past and I am very grateful to her for that.”

And just to add, in case you don’t know what Savage Ranch is, their website says:

“Savage Ranch exists for creativity. We are home to a vibrant community of artists, a photo and video location, a sanctuary for the disadvantaged LGBTQ+, and a safe space for meetings and music festivals. Our 60 acres of sacred land provide an artist residency and animal rescue station.”

Rachel became very close friends with Love, which eventually led to her intensifying hers even more activism. She began speaking at various schools, bringing words of support to LGBTQ+ students and handing out information about the project Trevorwhich supports LGBTQ+ youth going through a mental health crisis.

“After all, Jesus calls us to go where people need help,” she says. She even struck up a relationship with a conservative Temecula City Council member By Brenden Kalfuswhich she says is very open to hearing different points of view.

But while Rachel was able to change her view of the world, including the views of strangers, she was completely unable to do so in her own family. “Even on his deathbed, my father was afraid that he would go to hell. He was a good man, and the idea that he believed there were conditions on his admission to heaven pained me.’

This experience motivated Rachel to make a conscious effort to overcome generational trauma, which showed in her love for Aubree and the other children. She admitted that fear prevented her from realizing her full potential to embrace LGBTQ+ people. Today, however, she and her family overcame the fear together. She emphasized that fighting him is the only way to live a full life.

Source: lgbtqnation.com