Today's Out Spotlight is minister, author, filmmaker,activist, teacher and half of one of the most beloved teams on the television show The Amazing Race with his son Mike. Today's Out Spotlight is Rev. Mel White.
James Melville White was a behind-the-scenes member of the Evangelical Protestant movement through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, writing speeches and ghostwriting books for televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. White began coming out privately during the same period that the Religious Right stepped up its anti-homosexual statements.
In 1962, White graduated from Warner Pacific College. That same year, he married his wife Lyla. Mel and Lyla had two children, one of whom is the actor/comedian and screenwriter Mike White.
White went on to receive an M.A. in communications from the University of Portland, continued graduate work in communications and film at USC, UCLA, and Harvard. He received his Doctorate of Ministry from, Fuller Theological Seminary and also was on staff as a professor of communications and preaching for over a decade. Throughout all of his graduate work and teaching he also worked as an evangelical pastor.
After their marriage, Mel White admitted to his wife that he had always been attracted to men, while at the same time teaching that homosexuality was a sin. He fought to overcome his feelings, attempting to cure for his homosexuality. He turned to marriage, having a family, psychotherapy, prayer, electroconvulsive therapy, and even exorcism. Nothing changed his true orientation,and after he attempted suicide, he and his wife agreed to an amicable divorce. He began to understand and accept his homosexuality and reconcile it with his Christian faith, and express it respectfully and responsibly.
That journey is told in his book "Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America," published in 1994 the year after he came out. Lyla, his former wife wrote the foreword to this book.
In 1984, White met Gary Nixon at the progressive Episcopal church All Saint's Church in Pasadena, California. After 27 years, in June 2008 they were legally married in at the church they where they first met.
In 1993, Mel White came out publicly when he was installed as dean at the Dallas Cathedral of Hope of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC). He announced during his first sermon, "I am gay. I am proud. And God loves me without reservation." After coming out, White transferred his clergy credentials to the gay-affirming Metropolitan Community Church.
Since then, he has devoted himself full-time to minister to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, working on their behalf in the media, in the political process, and with fellow religious leaders.
In 1997, he was awarded the American Civil Liberties Union's National Civil Liberties Award for his efforts to apply the "soul force" principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to the struggle for justice for sexual minorities.
He and Gary founded Soulforce, a national social justice organization that works to end the political and religious oppression of LGBT people, the following year in 1998.
Dismayed by the increasing confrontational tone on both sides of the issue, and the hateful words and actions that increased the divide and inspired by the nonviolence movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., he developed a program based on their principles. Adapting the teaching of Gandhi's principles called satyagraha or "soul force" many based on the teaching of Christ, and adapting them to address the struggles of the LGBT community.
Rev. White has produced, wrote, and directed 53 documentary films and television specials on spirituality.
His journey has not only been an example of living proudly for the community but on a more personal level as well, as being an example for his son Mike who is openly bisexual.
Mel and his son Mike appeared on the fourteenth season of The Amazing Race. The nicest, sweetest and most fun-filled team of the season the two lasted for seven legs on the race before being eliminated in sixth place in Phuket, Thailand.
White has said he would much rather be the loving gay and stand before God in judgment that ministers like Falwell, Robertson, or Kennedy that do so much harm to so many of Gods children.
Mel and Gary currently reside in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Soulforce
Mel and Mike:
From the President Obama’s Father's Day proclamation:
“Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian. We owe a special debt of gratitude for those parents serving in the United States Armed Forces and their families, whose sacrifices protect the lives and liberties of all American children. For the character they build, the doors, they open, and the love they provide over our lifetimes, all our fathers deserve our unending appreciation and admiration.”
