White adapted the "soul force" principles to guide his struggle to end the religion-based suffering of lesbian and gay people.įor the past 25 years, Mel has traveled across the country recruiting, training and mobilizing a new generation of "take it to the streets" activists.
These principles were called satyagraha or "soul force" by Gandhi, who based many of them on the teachings of Jesus. Inspired by the nonviolence movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., White developed a program based on their principles. Mel was dismayed by the increasing confrontational tone on both sides the issue and the hateful words and actions that increased the divide. And God loves me without reservation." In 1996, Mel was appointed Minister of Justice for the Metropolitan Community Church with more than 350 congregations across the U.S. He announced during his first sermon, "I am gay. In 1993, Mel White came out publicly when he was installed as dean at the Dallas Cathedral of Hope a Metropolitan Community Church (UFMCC). (Re-released in 2010 as HOLY TERROR: Lies the Christian Rights Tells us to Deny Gay Equality). His latest book, Religion Gone Bad: Hidden Dangers from the Christian Right (2006) tells the tragic true story of the war fundamentalists have been waging against gays and lesbians.
That struggle and his halting, poignant steps to understand and accept his homosexuality, reconcile it with his Christian faith, and express his sexuality respectfully and responsibly, are described in his book Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America, published in 1994. Raised as an Evangelical Christian, taught that homosexuality was a sin, Mel fought to overcome his own homosexual orientation for decades in all ways available to him: prayer, psychotherapy, exorcism, electric shock, marriage and family. Mel White has been a Christian minister, author, and filmmaker all his adult life.
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