Last June, singer Christian rock singer Trey Pearson penned an emotional coming out letter to his fans. It didn't take long for anti-LGBTQ crusaders in the Christian community to criticize the former lead singer of Everyday Sunday, who has two children with his ex-wife, for being gay. The now-solo artist was even dropped from a Christian music festival. But after spending 20 years not being able to express his true self, Pearson has more important things to do than dwell on the haters — last week, the musician marked a milestone for the Christian rock and LGBTQ communities when he released a music video featuring a gay couple.
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The video for Pearson's new song, "Silver Horizon," features Pearson watching a religious service from the back of the church. A young man (played by actor Cole Doleman) gets up to sing, and after a couple of minutes, his boyfriend gets up from the pews and the two share a passionate kiss. Everybody is happy, including the priest. The song is a joyful and beautiful celebration of free love and tolerance within the Christian community.
Pearson talked to Out magazine about his experience writing the song and making the video. "The song, 'Silver Horizon,' is very much about the journey I have been on this last year and a half — going from trying to hang on so hard to something I couldn't be, to finding the light on the other side of the darkness." He continued, "I wanted the music video to be about that light and hope for the future. Coming from a systemic oppressive church culture that was brainwashing and made me feel like it wasn't okay to be my truest, best self, I wanted to shine a light on seeing that change, and the hope for a better future."
As for his relationship with the church today, Pearson says: "I have a deep appreciation for the faith tradition I grew up in, and have a lot of love for Jesus, but I also recognize there are a lot of horrible things done in his name... Overall, there's a lot of the church teaching extremely harmful theology, destroying millions of LGBT lives, and people around them, as well. It's not the church's first growing pains, let alone humanity's... I'm very grateful for how quickly it's changing right now, and definitely hope to see it continue to change." And celebrating more honest artistic expressions like this are a key part of that change.
"I hope the video changes hearts, and spreads hope to those who feel unloved or alone." ? https://t.co/CAn4oH6ovG
— Trey Pearson (@treypearson) April 11, 2017