When the youth of today relate to the experiences Baldridge expresses in her music, it brings her pain, but it also brings her joy watching those same young people fight for a space within Christianity. According to CBS News, Baldridge “finds power in the way queer religious people have taken parts of their faith, like hope, radical love and reclamation, and made them apart of their own queer culture.”
Baldridge says, “I think being a queer person of faith means you’re always sort of tilted towards resilience and hope. For a lot of queer people, reclamation is queer culture. So they’re able to reclaim the language, sometimes the music, the prayers, all the things that served us in this radical, unconditional, hopeful way, which I believe to be God. There’s no reason for us to ditch that just because other people say we don’t belong.”
The queer artist describes her music not as a preacher would, but as someone on a street searching for who God is, and after finding Him, struggling to obey His commands, telling the world—especially Christians–”F*** you, God can love me.”
Spotify Recognizes Semler and Trey Pearson as Christian Artists
Baldridge and Trey Pearson, the former lead singer for the Christian rock band Every Day Sunday and current solo artist who identifies as gay, posted on July 3 about a collaboration titled “Hey Jesus.” The song talks about coming out as gay and was featured on a Spotify Christian playlist.
RELATED: Did Amy Grant Affirm the LGBTQ Community on Apple Music’s Proud Radio?
The lyrics say, “Hey Jesus, can you hear me now? It’s been awhile since I came out. I was wondering, do you love me the same? You see, I’ve loved you since I was young. Tried to be the greatest son. Now I’m wondering, could they love me the same?” The song appears on Pearson’s album “Somebody You Knew” and has reached #21 on the iTunes music chart.
Pearson and Baldridge tell Jesus in their song that they could never change, because when they tried, it brought them too much pain. “I just wanna be loved for who I am,” they sing, pleading with Jesus to hear them out, so they can love like everyone else, asking if He could just “love me the same?”
