Six-time Grammy-Award winning artist and contemporary Christian music icon Amy Grant was a recent guest on Apple Music’s Country LGTBQ-themed Proud Radio hosted by Hunter Kelly.
Kelly, a veteran journalist and broadcaster who came out near the beginning of his career, has been hosting the country radio show since it debuted in August 2020. Grant appeared on his show Sunday July 11, 2021, to promote the 30th anniversary of her first mainstream album “Heart in Motion.” The album that gave the world “Baby Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” “That’s What Love Is For,” “I Will Remember You,” and “Good For Me,” sold more than 5 million copies and was number one on the Christian albums chart for 32 weeks.
Grant told Kelly, “Who loves us more than the one who made us?” Then she explained that we as individuals are not a surprise to God. “Nothing about who we are or what we’ve done. That’s why to me it’s so important to set a welcome table,” she said. “Because I was invited to a table where someone said, ‘Don’t be afraid, you’re loved.’ Gay. Straight. It does not matter.” She told all those listening that it “doesn’t matter how we behave. It doesn’t matter how we’re wired. We’re all our best selves when we believe to our core, ‘I’m loved.’ And then our creativity flourishes. We’re like, ‘I’m gonna arrange flowers on your table and my table.’ When we’re loved, we’re brave enough to say yes to every good impulse that comes to us.”
Kelly shared with Grant that her song “Ask Me” helped him understand what had happened to him when he was sexually abused at age three. The song helped him explain to his parents what had happened to him and they helped him get therapy when he was in 5th and 6th grade. “That abuse does not cripple me today because I was able to hear that song and get that help,” he said. “I was so grateful in that moment for God using you and your music to help me…every part of my life…professionally [and] personally is touched by ‘Heart in Motion.’”
Grant responded to his kind words, saying, “I’m just sitting here looking at you and whatever has made you who you are, you know you’re really beautiful.”
Kelly’s Follow-Up on Twitter
Kelly took to his Twitter page to share even deeper how much Grant’s album “Heart in Motion” meant to him. “I now believe I was born that way, but my big breakthrough came when a counselor I had as a young adult told me it didn’t matter how I got there, there was no ‘glory spout’ I could stand under that would turn me straight,” he said. That was when he when he decided to leave the church, sharing, “I left the church that didn’t accept gay people and went out into the world to be gay. To accept myself. That led me on to a delayed adolescence I can tell you about later.”
“To hear Amy say on this episode that I am welcome at God’s table as a gay man is so affirming,” he said, thanking Grant for changing his life. Referring to God as a female, Kelly closed his Twitter thread saying, “God has worked many of Her greatest wonders in my life through you. (I call God “She” to fight the patriarchy.)”
Read Kelly’s full Twitter thread below:
“Having Amy Grant on PROUD Radio on @AppleMusic Country today to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Heart in Motion makes sense on a musical level because this is the album that led me to dive head first into top 40/pop radio in 1991. It was a year before I saw Garth Brooks in 1992 and added an obsession with country music. Heart in Motion was my gateway to understanding how music was made and marketed and the single remixes on cassingle were my intro to dance music. But the connection with my queerness and Heart in Motion goes much deeper. When I was three years old, I was sexually molested by a teen boy. I remembered it happening, but I had trouble understanding what it was until I heard Amy’s song ‘Ask Me’ on Heart in Motion. That song made me put together what happened to me and tell my parents. I am fortunate we had the resources for me to go to a children’s counselor for about two years to start dealing with the abuse. As I got older, I started coming to terms with being gay. I tried to pray the gay away in therapy groups and at the altar on Sundays. A big part of this coming to terms was trying to untangle whether I was gay because of the sexual abuse or because I was born that way. I believe I had a leg up to wrestle with my sexuality at that point in my early 20s because the therapy I had as a kid let me know the abuse was not my fault. That wouldn’t have happened without ‘Ask Me’ by Amy Grant. I now believe I was born that way, but my big breakthrough came when a counselor I had as a young adult told me it didn’t matter how I got there, there was no ‘glory spout’ I could stand under that would turn me straight. So, I left the church that didn’t accept gay people and went out into the world to be gay. To accept myself. That led me on to a delayed adolescence I can tell you about later. But, to hear Amy say on this episode that I am welcome at God’s table as a gay man is so affirming. Thank you, Amy Grant. You’ve changed my life in so many ways. God has worked many of Her greatest wonders in my life through you. (I call God ‘She’ to fight the patriarchy.)”
Trey Pearson and Grace Baldridge Respond
The former lead singer for the Christian rock band Every Day Sunday and current solo artist who identifies as gay, Trey Pearson replied to openly queer artist Grace Baldridge‘s [Semler] Twitter post that promoted the Proud Radio interview, saying, “wow wow @amygrant explicitly saying she is LGBTQ+ affirming on PROUD Radio with @hunterkelly is so huge I’m gonna cry.” Pearson told Baldridge “We had a pretty beautiful conversation at @WildGooseFest a couple years ago. She’s the best. [rainbow emoji] [hear emoji].”
Baldridge released an explicit labeled Christian themed EP under her stage name Semler titled “Preacher’s Kid” that knocked Lauren Daigle‘s “Look Up Child” from the number-one spot on Apple Music’s Christian Albums chart earlier this year. “I wanna grab the #1 spot on the iTunes Christian Music Charts and claim it for anyone who has ever been cast out in the name of God,” she said in a post, asking her followers for help.
The “Preacher’s Kid” lyrics call mission trips “scams” and says they “do more harm than good.” Baldridge writes that she believes in Big Foot more than God because the mythical creature doesn’t hurt anyone, and says she is waiting on a God she can trust. Christian musician Kevin Max of DC Talk praised the album, saying, “Excited for you and for this breakthrough @GraceBaldridge…it’s high time Christian music got a shake up with a message of reality & hope beyond the homogenized CCM…kinda historic, definitely amazing.”