A pastor's calling

Rights leader subject of documentary at Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN MOVIE WRITER
Thursday, September 27, 2007

Troy Perry knew he was gay, but he married a woman anyway. He had two sons with his wife, and he loves them dearly. They eventually divorced. He eventually tried to kill himself.

Death didn't come easy, so the deeply religious, Georgia-bred Perry founded a church in his Los Angeles-area living room in 1968. He called it the Metropolitan Community Church. The Christian denomination was designed as a religious refuge for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, and today boasts more than 300 congregations in 22 countries.

Perry has been through a lot, all of which is on roiling display in Scott Bloom's documentary "Call Me Troy," an empathetic chronicle of Perry's life as a preacher, human rights activist, author and lover. Bloom and Perry will present the movie tonight at the Arbor to kick off the 20th Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival.

Though officially retired at 67, Perry still travels the world to speak at congregations. Last week, he returned from Singapore, where the government banned him from speaking.

He's accustomed to bigotry and fear. Yet he has stuck to his faith, his belief that God loves everyone, no matter their sexual orientation. (Note the title of his autobiography, "The Lord is My Shepherd and He Knows I'm Gay.")

Religion came early for Perry. He's wanted to preach since he was 15.

"As a child, I was very drawn to the church," Perry says by phone. "I attended the Seventh-day Adventist school on Saturday, the Baptist church on Sunday morning and the Pentecostal church on Sunday night. It was part of the Southern culture. Religion was laid bare there."

American-Statesman: As an adult, especially a gay adult, have you experienced any crises of faith? Have you questioned the silence of God, as we recently learned even Mother Teresa did?

Perry:Of course. I think everybody in the world does. I wish Christians could be more honest about this. There are those times when you question God. You want answers. I found it very interesting what she had gone through, and I think that happens a lot more with Christians than we're willing to talk about.

I presume your attempted suicide was one of those moments for you.

That was the bottom. I had been such a spiritual person, had been heterosexually married and then divorced. Through it all I had this deeply spiritual feeling to the church. But I couldn't find places to go to. There was that time in my life when I really believed that God couldn't love me.

How hard was heterosexual marriage for you? It seems incomprehensible that you could go so far in the other direction.

It was cultural more than anything else. I went to a fundamentalist church that taught us marriage was very important, and that if I was going to be in the ministry of the church of God that I had to get married. That was a prerequisite to everything.

Even though you knew it went against everything you felt?

I was at the point, wrassling with myself, but knowing I wanted to be like everybody else in the culture at that time. I can joke about it today. I mean, I married my pastor's daughter. He's the one who said that all you need is a good woman.

It almost sounds like an arranged marriage, forced and loveless.

It was very, very rough. I think it was torment for both of us.

Was the sex awkward and weird?

No, it wasn't. It was very interesting. My problem was that afterward I still didn't feel fulfilled.

Which led you to anonymous homosexual sex on the side during your marriage.

Yes. As a gay man, while I was married, I had anonymous sex twice.

How do you deal with or rationalize that as a moralist?

It kept worrying me. Why was I attracted to men? The church says it's a sin.

Did you believe it was a sin?

I didn't. But it was the true church. You have to realize that as a young Pentecost sometimes you look at religion completely different than you do as an adult.

Besides selective biblical references, what drives the rabid anti-gayness among ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists? Why is it so important to them when there are many more issues to be addressed? Their prudish fears look foolishly overblown.

I've asked myself that several times: Why do we frighten them so much? What is wrong with this picture? With fundamentalists, their version of what scripture says is the only correct way. They spend so much time on us that poor people still aren't fed. I always try to explain to them that in Leviticus 18:22 there is supposedly a condemnation of two men having sex, but nowhere is there anything against lesbians. If it was truly about homosexuality, it would have added women.

Do you picture God as some general, amorphous cloud or as a man with a beard waiting for you upstairs? And I'm not being facetious.

In Scripture, it says God is spirit and we worship God in spirit and truth. Moses actually said to God, "If you're sending me to the people, who do I say sent me?" And he replied, "I am that I am."

Sounds like he's evading the question.

Well, it's not so easy to describe how you feel about God, but that you do. Or you don't.

On to you, Rev. Perry. How important have you been to the sociopolitical status of gays in our culture? In a way, you've been a gay Martin Luther King, a "gay hero," as someone says in the film.

It's been an amazing journey. I am one of those people who's been at everything that's happened. History will have to decide what I did.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishments in the gay movement?

I'm so proud, of course, of MCC and watching how the denomination has transpired and grown, and how it's literally changed the face of religion and how it continues to challenge the larger church, telling it we're here, too, we're Christians, and that it has to change its attitude toward gays and lesbians.

How has homosexuality and its relationship with religion progressed?

It has come a long way, and we continue to move forward. There are now thousands of welcome and affirming churches. Starting with the Metropolitan and its first service with 12 people in my living room to where we are today is an incredible story. We have challenged the Christian church and told it "To know us is to love us," and that scares it to death, because they know it's the truth.