AE: That’s a pretty big undertaking. I mean, you’re a young guy yourself.
AS: Yeah. I’m only 21.
AE: Are you ready for it, or does it make you nervous?
AS: If I think about it, it will make me nervous, so I try not to thing about it and I try just to live. But I know it’s needed and I know it’s very vital and important. There are a lot of gay teens committing suicide because they feel so condemned and abandoned. They need to know that they are not abandoned, but they are loved. They are loved by God unconditionally. I know that’s a huge undertaking, but I’m willing to take it if it will save lives.
AE: You said you had not heard anything from your employers or your professional contacts yet.AS: No. I have not heard from them.
AE: Do you expect to be dismissed at this point?
AS: I do expect the show to be taken off the air. How that is all going to go down, I do not know. I know that they are good people and I respect them and I care for them and I hope that they feel the same. I just hope that they will be understanding to this whole situation, as hard as that may be.
AE: Have you found that the world of Christian broadcasting in general or Christian media is not hospitable for gays? Do you think there is a place for gays to be working openly in that environment?
AS: As long as Pat Robertson is alive, [laughing] I don’t think there will be. As of right now, I think there are so many gay people in the Christian industry, it’s ridiculous. Either people know about it and they just don’t speak about it, or they don’t care ... as long as it’s hush-hush and you’re not living it out and you don’t act upon it and you just are very quiet about it, it’s okay. So, I know people in bands, I know people in the limelight and behind the scenes in the Christian industry that are gay. I think that if we all just kind of came out together, people wouldn’t know what to do and they’d have to accept it.
Someone told me that Jan Crouch said that if all the gay people at CBN stopped working there, CBN would shut down.
AE: It sounds like Hollywood, pretty much!
AS: Yeah, so true.
AE: You said CBN – is that the Christian Broadcasting Network?
AS: Yes – No, I’m sorry, TBN – Trinity Broadcasting Network.
AE: You said you haven’t really heard anything from the fans of your show so far; you’ve been hearing from people who are hearing about you from secular channels or channels outside your regular exposure.
AS: Yeah, my audience that watches my show – they’re not exposed to gay media or liberal media, for that matter, so they aren’t going to hear about it until more the mainstream media picks it up. I mean, Perez Hilton reported it, so that’s how a lot of people found out, but other than that, they really won’t find out until the mainstream media carries the story.
AE: And even on your MySpace page it seems like the responses are positive so far. You don’t think those are viewers necessarily?
AS: I received just a couple emails from people who said "I’ve seen your work, I’ve seen your show and I support you." And they were gay, but I’ve never heard from them until now. Most of the people are saying "I’ve never heard of you."
AE: It doesn’t sound like you’re expecting a favorable response from your fans when this news hits the media. Are you optimistic?
AS: I think the response I see happening is them letting me know that they care, but they don’t support it. That’s kind of the response that I see coming.
AE: I don’t know if you’ve seen the documentary Friends of God, but it’s really fantastic. They speak a lot about the common trend for gay people of faith having to leave their faith communities when they decide to come out to live their lives authentically. It sounds like it’s very hard to reconcile only having part of yourself accepted by a community. Is that the trend you see as well, people having to leave the church or the communities they grew up in?
AS: I don’t plan on going anywhere. They are going to have to come up to me and push me out of the church or their circle if they want me to leave because I am the same person that they knew. They just know something else about me, but I haven’t changed. I’m still going to joke the same way. I’m still going to talk about the same things. I’m going to be the same person. You just know something you didn’t. I hope that they don’t do that, because that is not who Jesus was at all. His closest friends were the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the sinners. They were the low-life people of that time. So I hope they don’t do that.
